•yy^y^^-^^^i^C^'CiC'CC'^C'^^^ ^R^^.^. "^^m^ ^^^^m 2:gg«;s^^S4g*s-:g.S^-<^^« HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. CHAPTER I. The North Durham Country. THERE ARE TWO HUNTS in the north of England which 5 owing probably in some degree to their remote- ness, and perhaps in a larger degree to their insignificance, have up to the present received comparatively no treatment at the hands of the hunting historian. Probably some of my readers w^ill pull up short at the word " insignificance," and therefore I must explain that I only use the word in a comparative sense, for the two hunts — the Braes of Derwent and the North Durham — are not in the least insignificant as regards the sport they show, the attention they attract, the fields they draw, and so forth ; but being small countries, and two days a week establishments, they are not exactly on a plane with their neighbours — the Tynedale on the north and the Zetland to the south. The only history of these two packs that I have seen was a short condensed account which appeared in a work called the Foxhminds of Great Britain and Ireland, published in 1906, and which gave no more than a bare statement of facts. Very little space for each pack was allowed, and the details given therein can be considerably added to, though I must at the outset admit that certain information which I have tried to obtain has been of so vague a character that little reliance can bs placed in it. At the same time I may state that I have known both countries for a great number of years, and have never really lost touch with sport they have had, while I have collected a certain amount of notes which I can use. But I must make it clearly understood that I am not going to adhere closely to chronological order, that certain periods 2 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. of the life of these hunts must be briefly dismissed for want of information, and that most will be made of the facts which have actually come under my personal observation. In fact I am not going to attempt a history, but rather to describe the style of hunting which obtains in these two hunts, and afterwards to continue with personal experiences of some other countries. And first I must say something about the two particular countries for the benefit of those who are strangers to the district, and many of whom are under the imjDression that in the north all the hunting takes place among the collieries, and that foxes when dug out are black from coal dust. There are, as a matter of fact, collieries within the confines of these two hunts, a good number in the North Durham and a few in the Braes of Derwent; but collieries do not interfere with hunting any- thing like so much as might be thoixght by those who have not hunted in their vicinity, and there are many Midland hunts which have a colliery district, and do not find that their sport suffers therefrom. In the county of Durham, and also in Northumberland, the coalfield lies near the sea, and the further west one goes in either county the further one gets away from the coal district. In South Northumberland the coalfield extends some fifteen miles from the ccast, going inland, and a few miles further in parts of Durham. Each of the two hunts which have been named has a colliery distrioti on its eastern side, and to the west is open country, which is not. only free from collieries, but so wild and tiiinly populated as to form a very fine hunting area. The trouble is that in either hunt the wild country is not very large, and in the Durham hunt it has contracted very greatly since I first began to hunt. In the sixties of last century there was not, for example, any colliery in the Lanchester Valley, while mining operations were just being commenced in the Dearness Valley, which is separated from the Lanchester Valley by a formidable line of hills. The collieries between Brancepeth and Durham were also non- existent in those days, while the coal mines in the Bumhope and liolmside district were probably not a tenth part of their present size. But west of the road from Lanchester to Tow THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 3 Law there never have beeu any collieries, and here the country remains just as it was half a century ago, with hardly a new cottage, and no increase of population whatever. Indeed, the country has only one very small village and two tiny hamlets in its area, and yet it extends seven miles from Lan- chester to the moors, and seven miles, measuring crossways, from Rowley station to Tow Law. There is only one church (Satley, the village which has been meintioned) and scattered farmhouses, and as long as foxes keep within the boundaries of the district they can hardly be headed, for the land is all grass, and one can at times cross it from Rowley to Tow Law without seeing a soul in the fields in winter months. Most of this country is a high-lying plain, with little valleys here and there, and less than a mile west of Lanchester you are on the high ground, and the folds of the hills are insigni- ficant, which means that as a rule the galloping is sound, with not too many steep hills to climb. The coverts, too, are small and scattered, and for the most part easily drawn. There were uo big woods until Lord Bute's— so generally called, but now the property of the successors of Lord Ninian Criohtcn- Stuart. — axe reached, a,nd these lie cloae to Rowley station at the extreme north-western corner of the hunt. (During the War a great portion of these plantations were cut down.) Going westward from Lanchester the first covert reached is Humber Hill, a gorse — or whin, as it is called in th.e north — of about tem acres, situated on an open hillside. Here foxes are always bred, and here they are always found all through the season, and a, find here is, as a rule, a pretty sight, for the fox is generally viewed by all the field. A mile further west comes the Woodlands estate, where many good horses, including Scot Free, winner of the Two Thousand, were bred in the eighties. There are many coverts on the estate, and the late owner, Mr. W. B. Van Haans- bergen, though not hunting himself, was a good preserver of foxes, who ent.ertained the hunt, to breakfast at veiry frequent intervals. The Woodlands converts' are beautifully situated, but they have become very open at the bottom of late years, and hounds can go through them when running almost as fast as they can travel in the open. The Sawrm'll Wood, Sheepwalks whin, and Rippon Burn are the best of b2 4 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. th€isie coverts, and usually two or three litters of foxes are bred here. But. it is not an easy matter when a fox is found hereabouts to know exactly which covert he belongs to, for there is a rough field on the adjoining Colepike estate in which foxes frequently lie, and just beyond this field there is a young plantation on the Broadwood estate wiiich is now an almost certain find. Broadwood was formerly part of Wood- lands, but the property was divided in 1872, and the present owner of Broadwood, Mr. Penman, is also a great host of the hunt and a fine preserver, whose family all follow hounds. In fact, the Woodlands-Broadwood neighbourhood is abso- lutely the best part of the hunt, for the land is all grass, fo'xes are numerous, and whichever way they go there is the chance of a gallop. Half a mile north of Broadwood is Browney Bank, a cross roads with two cottages, and in the days of the old Durham County hounds this was the fixture nearly every Monday, for besides the Woodlands coverts it commanded those OiU the Colepike e&tate, which are smaller, but very good. The best of these at the present day are the Triangle and Stobilee, the first-named a five-acre plantation, grown up with gorse and undergrowth, and terribly thick, and Stobilee, a twenty-acre •wood, with very good lying in places. All the coverts which have been mentioned are within a mile of Browney Bank, but are smsdl in size, except the open Sawmill Wood, and the upshot is that the average fox found in any one of them, though he may run through several of the others, is not long in quitting the district. And apropos the Sawmill Wood, there was for many seasons one particular corner of it — next the Woodlands Five Lane Ends — to which foxes were very partial, the lying being good and rabbits numerous. At the time in question the late Mr. Anthony Maynard was Master of the North Durham, and in 1879 he engaged a new second whipper-in, this being Richard Freeman, who was aftei"wards huntsman of the pack for five and twenty years, and who is an uncle of the Pytchley and the late Zetland huntsman. Hounds met at Browney Bank and drew the Sawmill Wood, and Freeman was told to gallop up the lane to the Five Lane Ends, and halloa if a fox left the covert. And quite lately he told the story at a North Diirham puppy show. " It THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 5 v/as my first day with the pack," he said, " and I knew nothing about the country, but was told to go to the end of the wood (outside) and let eiveryone know if I saw a fox. As I reached the corner I saw a brace, and I began halloaing, and I halloaed while eighteen crossed the lane, but hounds never came, for they were away on the other side with another, and it took me an hour to find them." So much for the Sawmill Wood, but I may add that when I was a boy living at Woodlands in the sixties, during the joint mastership of Mr. John Henderson, M.P., and Mr. John Harvey, we once had so many litters at Woodlands that we dug out three of them, and I took them to the kennels at Sedgefield for turning out in a part of the country where foxes were not so numerous. I shall never forget the drive, for I was alone in a Whitechapel dogcart, and the cubs, which were tied up in sacks, were never still for a moment, but kept up a perpetual heaving against my legs. It must be under- stood that in the 'sixties the North and South Durham packs, as now constituted, were one and the same pack, with a kennel at Sedgefield for their southern country, and a kennel at Elvet Moor (Farewell Hall) for their northern country. And curiously enough the new kennels which Mr. Rogerson built on the Mount Oswald estate some fifteen years ago are only separated by a country lane from the old Elvet Moor kennels, discarded forty years ago. The house is now occupied by Mr. Rogerson's kennel huntsman. Going back to the physical features of the North Durham country, it should be explained that there is a country lane, four miles long and called " Long Edge," between Browney Bank and Rowley Station, and hounds cross it often half a dozen times a day, for it bisects the best of the country. It also bisects the Woodlands estate, the most westerly coverti of which is Sheepwalks, the starting place of many fine hunts some years ago, but now too thin to hold any but an occasional fox, though the adjacent whin covert is an almost sure find. Of Sheepwalks I have a curious recollection which may not be out of place here, though it is entirely personal. Well, then, it must be understood that one afternoon in the winter, during l^Ir. Maynard's mastership, I was riding quietly between the Derwent Valley and Rowley on my way to Broomshields, 6 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. where I was staying. Just below the old kennels at Castleside a fox crossed the road, and shortly afterwards eleven couples of hounds. I was riding a horse I intended to hunt with the Durham on the following day, but the temptation was great, so I followed on. Scent was holding, and hounds ran over the North Durham boundary and went to Sheepwalks, where there was a main earth. I knew the locality of this earth, went to it, and found about two couples of hounds marking. The earth was in the heart of the wood, and I tried to entice the hounds away, but what really moved them was the sound of their companions giving tongue. I quickly left the wood, and hounds ran on to Broomshieldsi, the very place I was going to, and there the second fox got to ground. What had hap- pened was that a fresh fox had jumped up in Sheepwalks and taken a majo'rity of the eleven couples on. The hounds were the Braes of Derwent, of which the late Colonel Cowen was then Master, but the curious part of the thing was that I never saw a single rider or a hunt servant, and the fact is hounds had slipped their field several miles from where they crossed my path. At Broomshields we succeeded in coaxing most of the hounds into the stable yard, and there they remained until a hunt servant arrived from Blaydon Bum the next morning. This hunt, as far as I saw it, had a seven-mile point, but I have quite forgotten what hounds had done before I saw them (except the fact that they had come several miles), though Colonel Cowen told me all about it. the neixt time I saw him. Sheepwalks, mentioned as the starting place of many good hunts, was more than half a century ago the best covert in its own particular district, and was in high repute when Mr. Russell had a pack of foxhounds at Brancepeth Castle {circa 1850) and for some years later. After a time, however, a long defunct gorse called the Freehold, nearly a mile to the east of Sheepwalks, used to catch up all the foxes of the district. The Freehold is now the grass field to the north-east of the most easterly entrance to the Woodlands on Long Edge lane, and there is still a well-known breeding earth among trees at one corner of it. llippon Burn followed the Freehold as the best covert of the district, and for many years hounds used to be taken there direct from the Browney Bank THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 7 meets. The covert is a larch plantation, which at one time had heather and whin all through it, and as long as these lasted it was a certain find. And here I may remark that all through the best part of the North Durham country larch plantations with a heather bottom form the best coverts ; but as the trees grow big the heather dies away, and thus it restdts that the lying gradually disappears. When a piece ol land is newly planted with larch in this particular country, or when an old plantation from which the timber has been cleared is replanted, it takes five or six years for the bottom to become thick. But it does so' automatically, and when once foxes have realised that there is good, quiet lying in the young plantations they seem to prefer them to any other sort of lying. Gorse, like heather, is natural to the countries I am writing about, and the best coverts are often made by a combination of the two plants v/ith a plentiful sheltering of young tre'cs. I may mention also' that spruce and common Scottish fir are planted with the larch as a protection to the latter, and the young spruce of eight to fifteen years old often fo'rm a most impenetrable thicket. Indeed, though foxes as a rule breed underground in the North, one occasionally knows of litters which have been reared in the open, and notably in the Tower Wood at Greencroft^ — sometime during the 'eighties — a vixen had her cubs resting on the broad, interlaced branches of two spruce trees at a height of about 4ft. from the ground. Young plantations are, as a matter of course, well fenced, and for months at a time no one but a gamekeeper — or perhaps a poacher — will ever be inside the fence. But as the trees grow, and grass takes the place of heather, it is, except when there is very strict game preserving, the custom to allow the neighbouring farmer to pasture young stock in these planta- tions, and this it is that causes a constant change ol covert on the part of the foxes, for it must be understood that the growing of larch is one of the industries of the district, and nearly all the trees come down when they are big enough to be sold for pit props. I have mentioned these facts about the coverts because there is so much difference between the coverts of the northern and southern hunting countries. The oak copse with a hazel bottom is unknown in the counties of Durham and Northumberland, for though there is plenty of 8 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. oak there is practically no hazel. In fact, in such oak woods as there are bracken takes the place of hazel, and though this forms a fine autumn covert, and stands up well until there is fairly severe frost, it has a strong smell of its own, and is about the worst scenting ground I ever knew, and particularly harmful at cubhunting time, for there are patches of it ex- tending over many acres, often just where cubs have been bred. The Sawmill Wood, which lies between Long Edge lane and Rippon Burn, contains a considerable amount of old beech and some magnificent spruce, some of which are nearly 100ft. high. It is, in fact, a real wood, and not a larch plantation except in one or two corners ; but it is overrun with bracken, and even when I was a boy the Durham County huntsman used tc complain about it. "If you could rid yon Sawmill Wood of the bracken I should kill a vast more foxes," he used to say, and most certainly the bracken is a great drawback every autumn until it is well laid by frost or snow, or both. As Rippon Burn began to decline the north-west corner, about 10 acres, of the Sawmill Wood took its place, and it was from this corner that Richard Freeman viewed the eighteen foxesi over the road. North of the Woodlands coverts is the Knitsley Valley, with a stream running through it which joins the Browney at Lanchester, four miles away. This Knitsley Valley has one long, straggling covert named Howens Gill, of which the extreme noitherly end is the Braes of Derwent country, and both packs draw the gill by arrangement. There are alwa5'^s foxes in some part of it but it is the worst covert in either hunt to get away from, for it consists of two hanging woods, each on a steep hillside, and foxes run up and down the full length of it and cross to the other side and repeat the same game. There is too much " up the banks and dov.'n the banks " for a riding field, and possibly Surtees had Howens Gill in his mind when he wrote the conversation between Sir Moses and Cuddy Flintoff, on the return of the former from a day of up and down the banks. But if Howens Gill is rather a heartbreaking place— and bad scenting ground to boot — it has a wonderful spur which used to be called Beggar- side, but is now known as the Oak Gill. This is only a little place in acreage, but of considerable length, and with good dry lying to the south, and it has been the starting point of two THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 9 very notable hunts in recent years. In one of these Mr. Rogerson's hounds made their longest point on record, going right across the Braes of Derwent country into that of the Ilaydon, and finishing five-and-twenty miles from the kennels at Mount Oswald. No doubt there was at least one change of foxes, but it was a singularly fine hunt, and after leaving Muggleswick (in the Braes of Derwent country) hounds never touched a covert until they reached Espershields, quite near the town of Blanchland. They probably changed foxes at Muggleswick, where the earths were open; but there was no stop, and, as a matter of fact, they entered the covert near Combe Bridges, went close to the earths, and came into the open near the Vicarage; then, going up the grass valley of the Derwent toi Edmondbyers, and thence on to Espershields, and Bog Hall, in the Ilaydon country, where they were stopped. The other big hunt from the Oak Gill was faster and not so long. It began with hounds going westwards to Castleside, where they turned abruptly, and were lost tem- porarily by most of the field. They ran, however, down the Knitsley Valley to Woodla.nds, thence to Browney Ba.nk, and Bromshields, skirted Tow Law, and turning right-handed came back to Broadwood, where the fox was killed in the open. The time was one hour and ten minutes, twelve miles were covered, and there was a seven-mile point in it, while there was only one slight check at Browney Bank, and hounds recovered the line without being cast. When hounds meet at Rowley station, which is the furthest meet from the kennels, they draw the Whitehall Plantation, and then Lord Bute's, and these are the most northerly coverts of the hunt, and fairly well foxed, though the raw material is not so much in evidence as it once was, owing to the fact that stone quarrying on a considerable scale is being carried on in the North Plantation — one of three plantations which form a chain of woods. For many years hounds used to meet at the comer of the North Plantation, nearly two miles from the present meeting place, and with great consistency foxes used to break over Eliza Farm and go down into the best country. Even now they prefer this line, but the quarrying has altered their habits, and they cannot be relied upon as they once could. At one time foxes used to run to Lord 10 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. Bute's from all parts of the hunt, and I remember one warm day very late in the sesison, during Mr. Maynard's mastership, when hounds worked a line very slowly from Rackwoodside, taking nearly an hour and a half to cover a distance which I saw Mr. Rogerson's hounds cover in thirty-five minutes three of four years ago. It was a bit of patient and very fine hound work, and as it was almost the last day of the season the Master was very anxious to kill the fox. He actually rode into the covert to see if an earth he knew of was closed, and, finding it was, he came back to the customary corner, where the field was drawn up. Luncheon was tackled, men got off their horses and lounged about in warm sunshine, and from the depths of the w^ood the occasional note of a hound was heard. Time passed, and the notes grew fewer. Many of the field departed, but the Master was still anxious, and at length at his request I went with the late Mr. Alan Green- well (then secretary of the hunt) to look for hounds and huntsman. It is a big wood with many rides, and we sea^rched for quite a quarter of an hour for now there was no sound at all. At length, in the heart of the wood, we suddenly dropped on a veritable tableau. Hounds were basking in the sun in an open space. The huntsman's horse was fastened to a tree by its bridle, and the huntsman himself was fast asleep with his back against the trunk of the tree, and a suspicious- looking bottle lying on the grass beside him. We woke him up, and did not give him away at the time; but after Mr. Maynard had been obliged to make a change the story leaked out. The huntsman in question is no longer living, and there is no need to mention his name. He could hunt a fox well, but latterly his sobriety was not to be relied upon. It was this same hunts- man, by the way, that was the cause of an oft-told story con- cerning Mr. Maynard — as great an enthusiast as ever breathed. Hounds had found at Bumhopeside, and ran very nicely to the top of Charlaw Fell, where they checked. The huntsman came up and cast them, where there was a most formidable fence, close to a gate. Hounds went through the fence; the huntsman rede to the gate, found it locked, and with the eyes of his Master and the field upon him rode at the fence, which which was really something quite out of the ordinary. He went at it hard enough, and the thorns closed behind him and THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 11 his horse just as the gate had been takeu off its hinges. As the field came through (the fence was high enough to pi-event one seeing what had taken place) they saw the huntsman laid out flat on his back, hounds casting themselves over the field, and the horse going away for all he was worth. The Master was first to reach the fallen huntsman, and, after looking at him for a moment, he turned round and said, " We must all go home. Poor Henry's dead. Poor Henry " (he went on), " he was a gallant fellow but he'll never hunt again." And then, as he suddenly noticed that hounds had hit off the line, his voice changed to a scream as he yelled, " For'ard on ! For'ard on ! " Henry by this time was sitting up and taking notice (he was not hurt at all, only a little dazed), and probably Mr. Maynard, whose eyes were everywhere, had taken in the situation; but the " For'ard on ! " on the top of the soliloquy was undeniably funny. During the war Lord Bute's plantations were cut down, but foxes are still to be found in the odd bits of covert Vv'hich are left. South-west of Lord Bute's the North Durham country is near the moors and very wild but the moors hereabouts are what shooting men call " low moors," and, though undulating, are not particularly steep. And what from a hunting point of view is most important, foxes seldom go on to the moors, pro- bably because they do not like travelling among heather. There is a big and good covert named Catback, separated from the open country by a strip of heather, and this is frequently drawn; but though almost surrounded by heather, it stands at the head of a grass valley, and foxes found therein generally go down the valley, or cross the strip of heather, and reach the regular country, which hereabouts consists of large pastures of rough grass which are never ploughed, and which carry a rare scent even in the driest weather. Down the valley I mentioned just now is Foresters Lodge, a fairly large country house, beautifully situated amid pine plantations, and with a 60-acre lake in front of it. The place is " extra parochial " in that it is beyond the usual confines of the hunt but the owner, Mr, Featherstone-Fenwick, acts as host to the North Durham once or twice in every season, and there are generally foxes in his young plantations, or at the adjoining covert of Lumley Ling, and they frequently oro&s the narrow valley and 12 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. point for Lord Bute's, and I do not remember ever having seen one go for the open moor. Lord Bute's has been for sixty years at least a great stand by of the Durham hounds. In the 'sixties, when Dowdeswell was huntsman, hounds used to be brought to Stuartfield Lodge (the agent's house) in Sep- tember, and would be quartered there for several days, and hunting every morning. In those days cubhunting— in the North, at all events — did not atti-act a tenth of the people it now does, and probably the meets were only sent to half a dozen landowners and tenant farmers who resided in the neigh- bourhood which it was intended to hunt. I was at Woodlands all one autumn and winter, owing to an accident which kept me away from school, and many a good early mormng hunt I had with " 'ard Tommy Dowdeswell," as he was locally called. Lord Bute's at the time harboured quite a number of roedeer, which bred there — there are still a few in the neigh- bourhood— and it was a difficult matter to prevent hounds getting on to the line of one ol these deer when they were out of sight. They used to break out over Whitehall Moss, and make direct for the wooded Derwent Valley, several miles away, and it was a, most difficult matteir tO' stop the paolv, for Whitehall Moss was boggy and soft, and hounds could cross it much faster than a horse. Dowdeswell was a bit of a veteran when I first remember him, but as hard a man across country as I ever saw. The tallest walls had no terror for him, and on Blueskin, an angular grey — almost a blue roan — with a stringhalt but thoroughbred, and an extraordinary jumper, he rode in truly wonderful fashion. He retired when the hunt was divided in 1870, and after a spell of horse dealing and inn-keeping at Staindrop, in the Zetland country, he came back to North Durham, and resided at Cornsay, and on a pony he used to follow hounds until he was more than eighty years of age. He died some twelve or fourteen years ago, and by his wishes the tail of his old horse Blueskin was buried with him. I have mentioned the North Durham country round Lord Bute's and Catback, and now I must take my readers further south to the neighbourhood of Satley and Broom- shields, and I am inclined to think that in these days this is the best country in the hunt from a galloping point of view. Satley lies three to four miles due south of Woodlands, and THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 13 midway between the two is Butsfield Burn, which is a long narrow valley, through which runs the river Browney, here- abouts quite a small stream. Butsfield Burn was onoe a fine covert, but the gorse has died away at the easterly end, which for twenty years was a certain find, and now it lies in patches, over a mile of ground, and finding a fox in it is not always certain. But when one covert becomes no longer safe in this country another takes its place, and if Butsfield Burn is not so sure as it once was the neighbouring whin on Dean House farm is as thick as a gorse covert can be, and there is always a litter or two between the whin and the top part of Butsfield Bum. The two are only separated by a single field, and a find at Dean House is a pretty sight, as the covert lies in the centre of a large rough field. South of Dean House, and about a mile away, is the Parson's Whin, a portion of the Satley Glebe, and though I never knew of foxes being bred there, it is close to the Broomshields Covert of Bedlam Lane, where some thirty acres of young plantation affoi*d nice lying, and where there is always a breed or two of foxes. They lie, too, in the Kennel Wood at Broomshields, and in the gill to the east of the hall, in a whin on West Shields farm, and a young plantation on the hill to the east of Broomshields Gill. Not many years ago the Broomshields coverts were the best of this part of the hunt, but the hall was empty for years, the shooting let, and cattle have been allowed inside the coverts. Foxes are always bred in the district, but finding them is not so simple a business as it once was, because they appear to change their quarters very often. When the late Mr. John Maddison Greenwell was alive all the interests of the hunt west of Lanchester were in his hands, and foxes were well looked after, not only on the Broomshields estate, but over a wide area of other properties, many of which were owned by non-resident landlords. John Greenwell was the greatest authority on foxes I ever met or heard of. He, so to speak, lived among them, and practically he not only knew of every litter, but, having watchetd them all from cubhood up- wards, he knew many of them by sight. He had a marvel- lously quick eye for a fox, either when hunting or walking about the country, and his halloa was so powerful and so melodious that he could bring hounds the best part of a mile 14 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. to where he had seen a fox. To' breed foxes and to hunt them were the great aims of his life, and the moment one season was over he began to find out what litters he had and what others there were in the district, and when these were located he woixld watch them right through the summer. During the warm weather of midsummer he would spend hours watching young foxes playing round the earths, for he had constructed shelters he could creep into unsuspected, and get close to these same earths. A hundred years before he was bom a small amount of coal had been taken out of the very top of Broom- shields hill, and certain pitfalls had been formed which made famous breeding places for foxes. For many years there was a breed in each of two pitfalls close together in a young planta- tion, and owing to the lie ol the ground it was possible to get within fifty feet of these earths almost at any time. The cubs from the two earths would often number almost a dozen, and as the summer wore on they were regularly trained so that when hounds came they would leave at once, and not wait to be killed in covert. The modus operandi was quite simple. A fine, sunny day would be chosen, when the cubs would be basking or playing near the earth. Their proprietor and a friend, or gamekeeper, would then creep up to the boundary and throw a couple of sharp terriers over the wall, climbing over themselves and rushing one to each earth, the earths being only a few feet beyond the wall. If a cub chanced to be very near the earth he might get in, but nine times out of ten they were further afield in the young plantation. The terriers quickly found them out, and as each cub came to the earth he was headed off. For half an hour at least the hunting would go on, the cubs trying the earths time after time without success. After a while the terriers would be called off and taken away, and the whole party would reoross the wall — there being steps in a certain place — and, entering the shelter, would in the next ton minutes or so see every cub in the covert disappear into one or other of the earths. This performance would be repeated a week later, and then once or twice more before the season opened, and the cubs quickly discovered that with terriers behind them there was safety in flight, and at the first sign of being hunted would break for the gill lees than half a mile THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 15 away. It might have been thought that foxes which were so frequently hunted would change their quarters, but these did not. To begin with, they were four or five months old before their education began, and then a brace of terriers from whom they could slip away in the covert were not very for- midable enemies, and, lastly, they were too big for the old foxes to remove. That foxes remove young cubs, carrying them in their mouths from one snug place to another, is within my knowledge, for I have actually seen them doing it; but a four or five months old cub is a strong, lusty individual, and at that time of his existence has shaken off the apron strings and become almost independemt. It must be understood that the place I am writing about was an ideal one for the business I have just described. The young plantation was situated on the crown of a hill, and the earths, except for the long rank grass which grew round them, were in the open and several feet below the highest part of the covert. They are indeed for they still exist — on a sloping bank, and from the outside of the wall a few feet away the ground falls so quickly that a man approaching from the lower ground is hidden until he reaches the wall. It would perhaps be difficult to find an exactly similar place, but I have seen young cubs hunted — exercised, we used to call it^ — by terriers in other coverts during the late summer, and most certainly the after consequences were satisfactory, for these cubs gave better sport than their neighbo'urs. No doubt it will be urged that too many cubs cannot be killed during cubhunting, and that hounds would be a little handicapped when hunting foxes which had been " exercised " by terriers, and so I must explain that at the time I am writing of — in the 'seventies and 'eighties of last century — holding up oubs in this particular district was not only unknown but almost impossible. I am seldom there now at cubhunting times, but I believe the foxes in the North Durham are hunted in ordinary fashion from the earliest meets in September, and I know they are in the adjoining Braes of Derwent country. Thirty and forty years ago there was no " field " to hold the foxes up, had it been thought of, and now very few of the covei-ts will allow of it being done, though when plenty of ridei-s are out it is possible at Rackwoodside, Dean House, and 16 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. Humber Hill, and a few other gorse coverts in the open. One of the chief difficulties which foxes caused in the Broomshields district, and, indeed, much further afield, and which John Greenwell worked hard at getting the better of, was caused by the country being full of old stone drains, many of which were nearly always dry, in which foxes would breed, and where they were often hidden exactly when they were wanted. The fact is that when tile draining became universal the old stone drains were left, and after a time many of them were forgotten, especially where bracken and gorse had grown over them. The pipes, often at a lower level, caused the stone drains to become |dry, and as a rule when foxes used them all entrances and exits would be hidden. Some, of course, were well known, and early in the year a terrier would be run through and the mouths secured by iron gratings, but others were constantly found in the most unlikely places, and at one time half the foxes in the country were bred in these drains. As long as one knew which drains were being used, those particular drains could be stopped at night like any other earth, but some of them were connected with others, like the trenches in France, and at times it was almost impossible to find all the entrances until a whole field had been pulled to pieces. To give an example, I have in recollection a day in the early eighties when all the Broomshields oovertswere blank, though John Greenwell — who for many years was his own earth stopper — had actually watched several foxes leave two or three sets of earths on the previous evening. As may be imagined, the Squire of Broom- shields was terribly upset, but for the next few days he was too busy for an investigation. On the following Sunday, however, he started a close examination of all the underground haunts of foxes in the neighbourhood, and to his great surprise his terriers bolted half a dozen in quick succession from a field drain on East Broomshields farm, which had been permanently closed at the beginning of the season, but nov/ had the grating removed on the offchance that a fox might have found another entrance. It was obvious that there must be an un- known entrance, but search was fruitless, and " John " was in despair for some days. Then one day he was crossing the field adjoining the lane into which the drain debouched when THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 17 a rabbit jumped up and was chased by terriers into the comer of the field in which was a tiny spinney. In this spinney were rabbit holes, and both terriers had disappeared into one of the holes. But they could not even be heard, and on leaving the spinney to reconnoitre, their owner viewed a fox cantering across the field. It then struck him that there must be com- munication between the rabbit holes and the drain in the lane not many yards away, and bringing a man and a spade they opened out the rabbit holes and found that it was so. While I am on the subject of John Greenwell and Broom- shields I must say something about the hare hunting of the district. The wide pastures of the big (in area) Satley parish are perhaps as good a hare hunting arena as I ever saw, and I certainly never heard of any estate which had been visited by so many packs of harriers and beagles as Broom shields. John Greenwell owned a very smart' pack himsself for three setasons in the late 'seventies, and theai he only gave them up because his health did not allow of his hunting every day of the week. But before that time I had seen at least three packs on the ground, the first I can remember being the Durham University Beagles, which were then kennelled at Lowes Bam, near Durham, and used occasionally to be brought to Cornsay overnight for a day on the Broomshields estate. Then the late Mr. Nicholas Bowser used to bring a pack of hariiers from Bishop Auckland, but before the Broomshields Hairiers were established the pack oftenest seen on the estate was the Wolsingham Harriers, of which a farmer named Vasey was then the Master. In the Complete Foahunter, published by Methuen and Co. soms fourteen years ago>, I made mention of Mr. Vasiey and his doing?, and asi I do not wish to repeat myself 1 will only say that he v/as a most wholehearted hare hunter, and a great " character." In those days — before the Hares and Rabbits Act — there were a great many hares in the North Durham country, and some of the landowners were very chary about giving leave to the Wolsingham Harriers, who, they said, dis- turbed the country and did not kill very often because they so frequently changed on to a fresh hare when running. The upshot was that most of Mr. Vasey's hunting was done on the boundaries of the moors, near Wolsingham, but he dearly c 18 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. loved a day at High Stoop or Deau House, and I once re- member him running a de©r from the north plantation (Lord Bute's) to the fishponds at Woodlands, where the deer took to the water, and the Master called his hounds off and beat a hasty retreat. He did not know, by the way, that his hounds were running a deer, for he had been in covert when the quarry broke away, but I told him when he joined me, a few minutes afterwards, and all he said was : ' ' Nowt of t' sort, thou's seen a cuddy " (donkey). Even the fact that hounds ran the lane from Lord Bute's to the Five Lane Ends did not convince him. After old Vasey's day John Greenwell's own pack hunted the district and showed fine sport. This Master was a bom huntsman, first rate on the horn, and with a most melodious voice. He occasionally hunted a fox about Sand Edge, or Cat Back, and at times took his hounds into the extreme west of the Braes of Derwent country, near the moors, when if he found a fox he simply could not help hunting it. It was with these hounds, hunting round Newton Hall, the residence ol Mr. Maynard, then Master of the North Durham, that 1 saw a free fight between hunting people and farm labourers, which I have described elsewhere ; but such a thing was absolutely unusual, and I never heard of a similar occurrence anywhere in the north of England. Mr. Vasey's hounds were a very scratch lot to look at, being of all sizes, and many of them a good deal on the leg. He liked a big hound, because oi the high stone walls, and here I may remark that harriers always did better than beagles in this country for the same reason; but this applied chiefly to the most westerly ground, where the walls' were much higher than they are lower down the country. Near the moors all the fences are formidable walb; further down the valley there are tv.'o or three thorn fences to every wall, and roundabout Lanche&ter the country is suitable even for amaJl beagles. ]\Ir. Greenwell's hounds were a great improvement on the Wolsingham. Their owner went here and there, procuring drafts, at a time when there v/ere many harriers in the market, and as he drafted both at the head and tail he soon had a fairly even pack, which were wonderfully under control. I used to whip in to him at times, and I have one particular THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 19 recoilectioii of a very curious day we had together. The meet was at the Bay Horse, Caistleside, when Mr. Greenwell owned the adjoining farm of Hole House. We had only arranged the hunt at Broomshields overnight, and there was no " field "; in fact, when we started only " Bob " Davison, the host of the Bay Horse, was with us. The intention was to find a hare on Hole House farm, and hounds were taken to a few acres of turnips and at once went away on a strong line, for we saw nothing. They quickly crossed the road into Castleside Wood, and, getting through it much quicker than we did, were soon two fields in front. Running on hard, they were soon on the open moor at Whitehall, where they began to travel more slowly through the heather. We were now pretty sure that they had got on to the line of a travelling fox — it was at the beginning of February — and we debated whether we should stop them while we had the chance. It was decdded " just to see what they made of it," and a moment later they were going again, much faster because they were on a sheep track. Bearing gradually left-handed, they reached the Stuartfield Lodge Plantation, and now we agreed that if possible they should be stopped. But the covert just named was then terribly thick, and difficult for horses in the centre, and, though we could hear hounds, we could not reach them. After some time, and a great deal of horn blowing, it became certain they had gone on ; but we could find no trace of them, and we separated, and each of us rode about the country until dark, vainly looking for hounds. When I reached Broomshields John Greenwell was standing at the kennel door, and announced that a single hound had cast up. We spent an anxious evening, going constantly to the kennel ; but I do not recollect that any more hounds turned up, and it was a night of terrible storm, so that anything like a search party was out of the question. We were astir early the next morning, and shortly after daylight a lad on a pony appeared, with a dirty piece of paper in his hand, on which was scrawled, " Dogs is here." There was no name or address, but the lad explsiined that he came from an out-of-the-way moorland farm, that just before dusk on the preceding afternoon the dogs had rushed into their " back hemmel " — a local word describing a cowhouse, or similar outbuilding. This particular " back 20 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. hemmel " happened to be empty, and the fanner had shut hounds in, and when we got there he explained that " They had fair rived the place down in the night." They had done no harm, but they had not been fed, and had no doubt made a terrible din, and it had never struck the farmer what was wrong. After some investigation we found part of the brush and part of the mask and other slight remains of a fox, but practically all the bones as well as the flesh and fur had been devoured. Mr. Greenwell, when his health became indifferent, sold his harriers to the late Lord Lonsdale (brother of the present peer), and they were located at or near Penrith for the use of the tenants on the Lowther estate. After Mr. John Greenwell disposed of his harriers, hare hunt- ing at Broomshields was by no means at an end. The Durham Beagles, of which Mr. Creighton Foster was Master in the early 'eighties, and the Darlington Foot Harriers, under the control of Mr. T. Watson, were very frequent visitors over a period of several seasons. Creighton Foster was, like Mr. Vasey, of Wolsingham, quite a " character," and there was a certain amount of festivity mixed up with his hunting, nor did he appear to care much what sort of sport he showed so long as he ran a hare or two and killed an occasional one. He wa-s, in fact, very keen in the forenoon, but he was not a young man, and when he became tired he would hand his horn to anyone of his field who would take it, and, finding a coign of 'vantage on high ground, watch the proceedings from afar. At such times one naturally wanted to be with hounds, but those who stayed near the Master were entertained by his curious comments on the hunting which was taking place, bv a wonderful flow of chaff, bestowed on whoever might be near, and by a string of stories concerning the sport of the district. Creighton was an ardent foxhunter, and had been a hard man to hounds, but he was well beyond middle age when hfj became a " currant jelly " huntsman, and had lost his keenness. Still he got to hounds pretty quickly when they killed, and it was hardly fair to say of him — as it was said at the time — that he hunted the luncheon cart all the fore- noon, and the Broomshields saddle room afterwards. This saddle room, by the way, was for some years a sort of sporting club for the district, and on hunting days many were enter- THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 21 c tained there, as well as at the hall. Hunt servants were always very welcome, and farmers, gamekeepers, and others would find their way there on any day that either foxhounds or harriers were in the neighbourhood; but the great day was Saturday in the winter months, when all and sundry were allowed to try their greyhounds over the estate. John Green- well was almost as fond of coursing as he was of hunting, and as there were scores of greyhounds within a ten-mile radius, and leave for trials elsewhere was not easily obtained, it will be understood that there was a rush to Broomshields, especially during the inclosed coursing boom, when meetings were being constantly held at Gosforth Park. The only drawback, from tlie greyhound owners' point of view wa^ that the hares were too strong, and that in consequence some of the greyhounds got too big a dose, but the demand for trials never showed any decrease, and the Saturday coursings were continued almost up to Mr. Greenwell's death in 1886. " Tom " Watson, Master of the Darlington, was the exact antithesis of Creighton Foster as a hare hunter. His keen- ness was quite remarkable and his running powers simply extraordinary. His pack, too, were excellent in their work, well cared for, and admirably hunted. They were the first pack to kill five hares in a day on the estate, and I may em- phasise the fact that each of these five hares stood up for quite half an hour. Indeed, a weak hare was almost unknown in the Satley district in the 'eighties, and it is on record that on one occasion, where there was a good deal of frost in the ground, twenty-seven greyhound trials were run without a single hare being killed, but I must add that in nearly every case the hare, after being well coursed, found shelter in one of the larch plantations of the estate. To return for a moment to the Darlington, the pack used to be brought to Tow Law by train on the hunting days, and when the sport was over many of the field would drive or go by train to Durham, thirteen miles away, to be entertained at dinner by the late Mr. J. F. Bell, of North End, father of tlie present joint Master of the North Durham, and of Captain W. Bell, of tJie 12th Lancers, who was wounded in the wax. About this same period I have a recollection of Mr. " Jack " Pease, now Lord Gainford, bringing a pack of beagles 22 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. to High Stoop, or Iloiislip Bridge, on the borders of the Broomshields estate, but the successors of Mr. Creighton Foster's beagles v/ere the pack which Mr. J. E. Rogerson owned for a sieason or two before he took the North Durham foxhounds, and the defunct Shotley Bridge beagles, of which Mr. Arthur Falconer was Master. Each of these packs showed excellent sport, and the Shotley Bridge "psuck once rivalled Mr. Watson's feat of killing five hares in a day. Both packs were followed by an unmounted field, and at thisi period — the middle and later 'eighties — these tvv'o packs and the Darlington each came in turn, there often being hare hunting in the neighbourhood every week. The Durham con- tinued their visits under a succession of masters, and before the war Mr. Frank Bell, who bought Mr. Allgood's harriers from North Tyne, hunted the country very regularly and showed excellent sport. And now to go back to foxhunting in the North Durham country, mention must be made of Gladdow, two miles north of Broomshields, and which has been for fifty years, and still is, one of the very best coverts in the hunt. Gladdow is placed on a steep hillside, and its virtue lies in the fact that when one part- of the covert becomes thin another part is always ready to take its place as a fox sanctuary. It consists of two larch plantatioais, a small wood of forest timber, in which there is strong undergrowth of holly and other shrubs, and about half a dozen acres of gorse, which adjoin the covert on its east side, and which at the present day is practically a certain find. Perhaps there have been more good runs from Gladdow than from any other covert in the hunt, and one of my first recollections of it goes back to the early days of Mr. Maynard's mastership, when hounds ran to the North Planta- tion (Lord Bute's), theinoe to The Sneep (Braes of Derwent country), Greenhead, and then, after a widish circle in the Shotley country, came back to Mosswood, where they killed in the road, close by the woodman's cottage. The great thing about Gladdow was that its foxes had no notion of hanging about their own country, but always went for a distant point, and this no doubt caused the high reputation which the place has always held. Mr. John Groenwell owned a part of it, and in his* day nine finds out of ten were in that part, but no^v the THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 23 best part of the covert is on the Ushaw Co-llege estate. Gladdbw lies in a secluded vale, with no population near it, and a quieter place for foxes could hardly be found. Nor does it matter what time of day it is drawn, and I have known hounds take a hunted fox through it about one o'clock, and draw it at 3.30, and get a great hunt. The occurrence I have in mind took place some fifteen years ago, and hounds ran, with hardly a check to speak of, until six, when it was too dark to go on, and an opportunity occurred of stopping thean. The hunts- man's horse had given in, and a big field (this hunt came at the close of a good day) was reduced to four or five, when hounds were stopped at Satley. The huntsman came up a few minutes latea* oai a po^ny borrowed from a farmer, and the only trouble v/as that the fox — who was seen not far in front of hounds just before they were stopped — was not brought to hand. I could mention scores of good runs from Gladdow which I have seen, and I know of others which took place in my absence; but old runs are not alwa3's interesting, except to those who were in them, and I shall only mention one more, which took place in March, 1883, shortly before Mr. Maynard's mastership came to an end. Hounds were advertised for Satley, and as the season was nearing its close there was a large field. But Satley lies 800 ft. above sea level, and when people arrived from the lower country they found a hard frost in the neighbourhood of the meet. Matters were better at tweJve o'clock ; but the Master did not want to hunt, and probably would not have done so had not a gamekeeper arrived with the information that a fox was lying on a little bit of ploughed land adjoining Hirh Gladdow. As a rule such stories do not bear much fruit, but this was a true one, for as hounds entered the field the fox was viewed leaving it on the other side. Scent was as good as it could be, and hounds raced alongside the Gladdow Beck to its confluence with the Browney, and thence down the valley to Greenwell Ford and left-handed to Newbiggen, going over the frequently used point-to-point course. They then ran through Woodlands, Rippon Burn, the North Plantation (Lord Bute's), and across the Darlington railway at Burc Hill station. By this time the field was greatly reduced, for hounds had been going best pace for nearly an hour, and had 24 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. never been handled for a moment. On the far side of the railway hounds could be seen going over the open moor, and it looked hopeless, but the fox had not liked the heather, and five minutes later he was viewed bending to the left. He re- orossed the railway at Salter's Gate, went by Woodbum and Butsfield Burn to the Black Banks — then a strong covert — and over Hall Hill Farm to the College Wood at Gladdow, where they caught him. The wonderful thing about the hunt was that hounds went right through it without a check, or, rather, they were always able to set themselves right when they faltered, and were never touched by the huntsman, who, as a matter of fact, had to stop near Burnhill owing to his horse being beaten, and only saw the first part of it. From Greenwell Ford to where hounds turned beyond Bum Hill is seven miles, and from the turn to the kill at Gladdow five miles, and, in fact, the hunt was oblong in shape. For the last half -hour there were only two riders with hounds, and one of the two came to grief at timber on Land House Farm, not a quarter of a mile from the end. The other succeeded in re- covering the brush and mask, both in a dilapidated condition, but he had to leave his horse and wade waist deep through the Gladdow Beck, which was in high flood after a thaw and quite an impossible jump. And, very curiously, within a few minutes a great number of people cast up. The Master (on wheels) and several others had never left the district, for hounds had slipped away at top speed, and many had funked the going. All of these had stayed in the neighbourhood of Gladdow, which was to have been the first draw of the day, but after the kill there was a general adjournment to Broad- wood, then the residence of Mr. G. G. Taylor Smith, a great supporter of the hunt, where a certain amonnt of festivity was a natural consequence of such a hunt. This hunt will always live in my memory, because I do not remember ever seeing hounds cover such a distance of ground without at least one or two checks ; but there can be little doubt that the same fox was in front of the pack all the way, for they never f altered in going through the two or three coverts which were in the line, and the fox came back into the country he had been found in, and was killed barely a mile from where the hunt commenced. THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 25 John Greenwell, who was a fine judge of everything con- nectod with hunting, and not given to overestimating the doings of hounds, held a strong opinion to the effect that this was the best run he ever knew of with the North Durham, and I am much inclined to agree with him. A bettt^r line could not be found in this particular country, for hounds ran almost into Lanchester without touching a covert except the few acres of Robinson's Wood. They then went on to Woodlands, all open country, until they creased a corner of the Sawmill Wood, near the Five Lane Ends. Through Rippon Burn they travelled so fast that hounds were two fields ahead when the riders got through the wood, and when they reached Lord Bute's tiiey merely ran down the North Plantation inside the wall, and went straight out at the west end. Of course, the fox was an exceptional one for any country, and, judged by his mask, about four or five years old. I seem to have written a good deal about John Greenwell and the hunting he looked after, but, as was recognised at the time, he was quite an exceptional sportsman, and had the knack of doing everything well. With all his knowledge he was a shy and retiring man, who would never attend a public function in case he might be asked to make a speech, and who never threw his tongue except when he was hunting hounds. He was for a time in the 4th battalion of the Durham Light Infantry (then a militia regiment), and he was for a few terms at Cambridge, and I feel that I would not be doing him j ustice unless I recounted a little story of his life in either place. The militia episode comes first, and is as follows : The recruits of the regiment had two months* training at the old barracks in Durham every spring before the full regiment went into camp. I was staying at Broomshields, and John, then one of the senior subalterns, and I drove one Saturday to Du'rham to dine at the mass, and a friend, who' was serving with the recruits, was to return with us, having leave for Sun- day. It was a guest night, and a festive one, and about mid- night we started on our homeward drive of thirteen miles. John decided to go by Esh instead of by Lanchester, and drove, while our friend was on the back seat of a high dogcart. All went well until we reached Aldin Grange, about two miles out of Durham, and here there was a bridge over the river Browney. 26 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. But before the bridge was built there v.-as a ford, and at the time I am writing of the old road through the ford was still open. It was a dark night, and the road into the ford came just before the bridge. Whether he meant it, or was confused by the want of light I do not know, but our driver turned into the ford, and as the horse slowed down into the water, and the cart jerked a little, there was a heavy splash, caused by the militiaman falling off behind. " Pull up ! "I shouted ; but the only answer I got was, " That's just what we wanted. That's lightened the load nicely. Now we shall get up the hill all right. Just think of it, we've drowned a militia- man ! " The " load " had been down in the water, and was, of course, dripping wet, but by walking up the hills and run- ning down them (he was an active boy), with his hand on the tail-board, he covered most of the eleven miles on his feet, and was none the worse for his ducking. The Cambridge business was a visit I paid him, and first I should say that John did not go up until he was two or three years over the usual age, and that he went to Downing simply because he had heard that one cf the dons (Mr. Perkins) was secretary of the Cambridgeshire. I had never been at Cam- bridge (except in a Newmarket train), and when John asked me to pay him a visit, he explained that he had put off his own sight-seeing until I came (he had been up at least two terms). Well, I reached Cambridge late one night, and next morning there was a cheery breakfast party in John's rooms, during which time a guide sat in the passage with a tankard of beer in his hand. About twelve o'clock, after an argument as to the course to be followed, we set out, and the first place we reached was a stable where sundry of the party had a hor?e or so at livery. There was a longish delay here, and then an adjournment to another stable, and then, I think, to a third. Then we passed a place " where they sold the best beer in Cam- bridge," and that caused another check, and from this place we went down a yard to see a litter of terrier puppies and a beagle or two at walk. Then I was taken to see the prettiest barmaid in the town, and all this time the guide kept mutter- ing, " What about King's Collec^e chapel? " and so forth. At last one of the party who had constituted himself as our leader very early in the proceedings, said, " Now for the sights. THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 27 This way," and he rattled down a back street. At the end of this street he tipped the guide and told him to shove off, and, nipping into a stable yard, hustled us all into a pair- horse waggonette which was standing all ready to start, and in this we drove to the Cambridgeshire kennels, and spent the afternoon (it was a summer term) in an inspection of the pack. I left the next day, and when John Greenwell finally " came down " he was not quite clear whether he had ever seen the sights, except on the particular day I have mentioned. South and west of the Gladdow-Broomshields country there are certain wide, open tracts of " white " land, which include Hedley Hope Fell and Stanley Moss. Foxes lie out on the Moss, and if found there must make a fair point ; but this par- ticular country is bad from a riding point of view, for the hills are ste«p and much of the ground very wet and only half drained. There is, however, a fine gorse covert in the open on Hedley Hope Common, which is known as Cuddy's Burn, or Cuddy's Hills, but from which particular Cuddy the name came I have never heard. Cuddy is short for Cuthbert in this country, and also is a local word meaning a donkey. The name Cuthbert is very common in the north, and Surtees, it will be remembered, gave the name to one of his finest characters. Cuddy Flintoff, in Ask Mamma. Not far from Hedley Hope some years ago — but on the other side of the ridge of hills — dwelt one Cuthbert Mawson, who was always known as " Cuddy Mossum." This particular Cuddy was a rough-and- ready foxhunter, keen as mustard, but though a vrealthy man he turned out in deplorable style, and at times I have seen him in an ordinary suit of clothes, with the trousers stuffed into an old pair of top boots, which, he said, belonged at an earlier period of their career to a postboy. His horse was always badly groomed, and it was marveillous how his saddle anrl bridle held together ; but he knew the country and the run of the foxes, and occaisionally would turn up at the end of a long hunt when very few were left. On one occasion during Mr. Maynard's mastership hounds ran a fox from the Brancepeth country to ground in a field drain not far from Crook. The Master was very anxious to have the fox out, and as it was late in the afternoon, and the place looked a simple one, he decided to dig, and a couple of spades were quickly brought 28 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. from the nearest farmhouse. But difficulties soon arose, for the drain forked quite close to where the fox had gone in, and at least a couple of hounds had disappeared, and had apparently stuck somewhere. Local labourers kept coming up, and at length the Master shouted, " Do any of you men know the lie of this drain ? " And then Cuddy, who had been watching the proceedings, quietly observed, " Those men knaw nought, but here's one coming who aught to knaw the drain, for he was about bred up in't." This from a remarkably silent man was thought to be final and conclusive, and full charge was given to the newcomer, who quickly liberated the hounds, and a few minutes later drew the fox with his own hands, and held him out to the Ma&ter in the simplest way, evidently ex- pecting that as he himself knew how to handle a fox other people would be able to take it from his hand just as easily. Hounds were in a distant comer of the field, but, as a matter of course, they seemed to know the moment of liberation, and after they had broken their fox up (it was now quite dark, so that there was no question of law) we adjourned to Cuddy's house, not far away, and were regaled on cake and port wine. I was never in the house except on that occasion, but I re- member the walls were decorated with hunting prints, which alternated with pictures of fat, prize-winning cattle. Shortly after that date poor Cuddy had a shocking accident. He was trotting his horse in the dark along the back lane of the village when he was caught round the neck by a clothes line, pulled off, and severely injured, and, if memory serves, he did not live long afterwards. The hill, which reaches its highest points about Hedley Hope and Tow Law, and divides the Browney and Dearness valleys, acts as a sort of natural barrier to the Lanchester portion of the North Durham country but beyond and slightly to the west it is a triangle, the points of which are Tow Law, Witton-le-Wear, and Wolsingham, and at one time this was very favourite hunting ground. Now, however, mining opera- tions have spoilt all the eastern part, and though hounds meet both at Witton-le-Wear and Wolsingham, they only go occa- sionally to those places which are very remote from the kennels. The river Wear divides the North Durham from the Zetland country and west of Bishop Auckland, and either pack may THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 29 cross from one country to' the other. The North Durham a few years agO' ran to the Grove, and I have known of several couples of the Zetland running to ground at Broomshields. They had come from the Black Banks, just east ol Wolsingham, and a whipper-in was sent after theim, and had no trouble in recovering them. But as far as my experience goes the foxes from the Black Banks, or from the Ha.i*perley estate on the North Durham side of thei Wear, merely cross a.nd recross the Wear, and do not leave the district, while if they get a little way into- the neighbouring country they are stopped and brought back. East and north of this Wear Valley country are the Brancepetli covea-t?, and though collieries are much more numerous than they once were, there is still a fine stretch of country between Conisay and the Wear at Sunderland Bridge — about tcin miles' in distance — all of which is very regularly hunted. Quite near Cornsay lies the Almshouses Whin, a sure find, and fairly good to get away from, as foxes go over the Cornsay Hill to Gladdow or down the Dearness valley to the Monkey's Nest, which is also a whin covert, on the site of of the once famous Town's Plantations. I can remember this district when the collieries were just beginning to appear, and when it was all plain sailing from Lord Bute's to Brancepeth, and even now the country is not greatly cut up, because a colliery and its cottages, coke ovens, and so forth are always concentrated and cover no great area of ground. There is none of the straggling of a suburban district, or even of a large country village; but a coal pit or two, possibly coke ovens, a few railway sidings, and several rows of streets of cottages all dumped down together in a very small space. From a hunting point of view the colliery railways present the greatest difficulty, but of course all the crossings are known, and it seldom happens that a field is hung up, for gates are frequent, on account of all the farming interests. Curiously enough, hounds may meet in a colliery village, and hunt all day within a mile or two of the collieriee, and yet never go very near them. Whether foxes visit them for the sake of the poultry at night, these same foxes do not seem to care about going into the vicinity of the pits when they (the foxes) are being run by hounds, and I believe that the same sort of thing has been noted in other colliery countries. In the North Durham the 30 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. pitfalls caused by miuiiig near the surface are a greater hindrance to hunting than the collieries themselves; but it must be understood that I am writing of one particular part of the hunt, and not of the north-western quarter, in which there are no collieries and a very thin population. Ivesley Pastures, which are open fields covered with heather and gorse, and Rowley lie south of Town's Plantations, and at the Bid- dings, close by, there was some years ago a single litter of ten fox cubs, as was proved at the time. As may be imagined, they were small and weak, and nearly all of them were killed during cubhunting without affording any sport worth the name. A little further south is Hedley Hope, a strong covert, on a hillside, with the Dearness stream separating it from Stanley Wood. (The Dearness is formed of two streams, one of which comes down from the Comsay valley and the other down the Hedley Hope valley, and which meet near Waterhouses.) These coverts are a great stronghold of foxes, and they form the western end of a chain of woods, of which Ragpath and Waterhouses are more easterly. South of this valley the ground rises gradually to Weather Hill, which, one thinks, is now the best of all the Brancepeth coverts, for it includes young plantations which are snugly placed, miles away from any population, and which afford the driest lying imaginable. Beyond, in the next valley, and still further south, are the IMiddles and Stockley Gill, and foxes ring the changes con- sistently between all the coverts I have mentioned. In fact, great sport is of frequent occurrence on the Brancepeth estate; but as a rule the points are short, and I have known hounds travel between Waterhouses Wood, Weather Hill, and the Middles half a dozen times in one afternoon. Indeed, I have in recollection a. hunt of abouti twenty years ago, when hounds found at the Middles, and were runing for three and a half hours, with no checks worthy of the name, and yet were never more than three miles from where they found. On that occasion they covered quite five-and-twenty miles of country, always at a holding pace, and when darkness came only three or four of a fairly large field were left. It must be under- stood that there are no collieries or villages between the Water- houses district and Brancepeth, and only the smallest agricul- tural population. THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 31 The Braacftpeth coverts, owned by Lord Boyne, are beauti- fully kept, and it would be difficult to find a better covert than the Middles, though just lately the young plantations at Weather Hill seem to be more favoured by foxes. The Middles is a large plantation, and with all sorts of lying, but much of it has a heather bottom, and at the moment I cannot recollect having seen it drawn blank — and I must have seen it drawn between fifty and a hundred times at least. It is intersected by wide grass rides, and there is an earth about the centre of the covert and another near the stream at the north end. For cubhunting there could hardly be a better place, for foxes can always be viewed as they cross the rides but it is practically a sure find always, though, because it is at the head of a little valley, it is seldom a first draw, and I am inclined to think that hounds run into it more frequently than they draw it. I have a recollection of it saving a blank day on two occasions, the first being many years ago, when hounds met at Witton Gilbert, and drew until four o'clock without finding. It was nearly dark when they reached the Middles, but they found there, and ran straight to Gladdow, half a dozen miles away, and where the earths were open. Henry Haverson was then huntsman, and I stayed with him an hour or two at Gladdow trying to collect hounds, who were busy among several fresh foxes. The second occasion was when the mange epidemic was at its worst, some years ago, in a season when the North Durham only killed two and a half brace of clean foxes, all the others being more or less mangy. Lord Boyne is a great benefactor to this side of the hunt, for he owns a large tract of well-foxed and very sporting country, and though he himself is Master of the adjoining South Durhaiii country, and now seldom out with the North Durham, he prac- tically supplies the raw material for about one day in every fortnight. North of the Brancepeth country comes the Lanchester valley, about twelve miles in length, from Durham to Iveston, where lies the most northerly covert. Time was when this was the best riding country in the hunt, but there are now three large collieries in the valley, and though they are some miles apart, they have altered the character of the hunting, and whereas foxes used to run week after week from Hill Top 32 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. to certain places west of Lanohester, and vice versa, tliey now more frequently cross the valley, and they are nothing like so numerous as they once were. At the Durham end of the valley, Sniperley Moss, some plantations near Ushaw College, and Hill Top are the chief coverts ; but Hill Top, formerly a great stronghold, is much thinner than it was a few years ago, and not so sure a find. Opposite Hill Top, on the other side of the Browney, which hereabouts has assumed the proportions of a river, are Lord Durham's Langley coverts — where many big bags have been made by Royalty in comparatively recent years— and west of Langley, Burnhopeiside, formerly the property of the late Mr. George Fawcett, of coursing celebrity, and of which the late Mr. Alan Greenwoll, of Durham, for many years secretary of the hunt, had the shooting, and strictly preserved foxes for a long period. Burnhopeside is a famous covert, where foxes are always bred, and to which they run from many parts of the hunt, and it is snugly placed on the side of a hill, with the earths well secluded. At Greenwell Ford, a mile and a half west of Burnhopeside, there are young plantations which doubtless will hold foxes shortly; but Hollybush, a whin covert and a certain find for many years, has been ploughed out. One other fine covert in this neighbourhood, midway between Greenwell Ford and Gladdow, is Rackwoodside, a 20-acre whin on a steep hillside, where the field can stand on the top and watch every fox that moves. Probably the average North Durham man would con- sider Rackwoodside the best covert in the hunt, and I am not sure that the claim would not be justified. Foxes are always bred there, and I am inclined to think that it affords (at the present time) better sport than any other covert one could name. West of Lanchester are the Greencroft coverts, and further west Iveston Gill, which is, however, so remote that it is seldom drawn. But at times it has afforded a good hunt, and I have in mind a very fine hunt from it in the 'seventies. Hounds ran a fox there from the Tower Wood at Greencroft which went to ground. Hounds were being called away when a fresh fox was viewed, and this one hounds ran to Bogle Hole, How ens Gill, Sheepwalks, Butsfield, Broomshields, and thence left-handed to Low Mill, where they killed. This hunt was THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 33 done at a rattling pace, and it is impressed on my memory because Mr. Maynard had never been at Iveston Gill before, and, in fact, did not know of its existence. When the then Master took the North Durham he had just come into the country from Yorkshire, and though at the time of this run he had been Master for three or four seasons, he had never seen Iveston Gill, which is rather hidden in a fold of the hills. But after this fine hunt I was asked to look after the covert, which is only a little, neglected -looking place, and I found that its ownership was disputed, that two adjoining farmers claimed the eatage, and that anyone and everyone went intoi the covert as they liked. It held foxes because of an impenetrable whin in part of it, and I quickly discovered that a cottager who lived not far off was in the habit of waiting for the foxes with a gun, and sending those he shot to b© stuffed. The place was what Surtei^ called " extra parochial," and is of small account in the doings of the hunt, though foxes gO' there, on account of the pitfalls, which are very difficult to " stop." East of Greencroft there is a very good covert called Bunihope, and near it Gee's Whin, which was burnt not long ago, but is growing up again. Ati one time thig waa about the thickest gorse I ever saw, and Mr. Rogerson used always to go in on foot when he drew it, while " night sliift " miners who had come to see a hunt would help him. Even then it was a most diffi- cult matter to get a fox to leave, for the whin is at least ten acres, and there are no rides or open spaces. Gee's Whin is at the top of the hill, and on the eastern side of this hill there is a long chain of coverts, many of which are OAvned by Lord Durham. These extend from Burnhope to Sacriston, and though they are for the most part in a long, narrow, wooded ravine, there are certain spurs, such as Taylor's Plantation. The whole form a fine chain of coverts, from which many foxes are found ; but Sacriston Wood, at the south-eastern end of the chain, is the great &tronghold, and the foxes bred there' — which are looked after by Colonel Blackett, of Acorn Close — afford a supply for quite a big neighbourhood. There is, too, a covert named The Hag, a little east of Nursingfield Gill, and in my early days hunting men used to talk ol the best run of many years having ended there. This hunt took place in D 34 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. the late 'sixties, and though I have not the exact date, I have an account of the run which appeared in the local paper. Hounds found in Rippon Burn, passed close by Woodlands Hall, ran nearly to Castleside, turned through Lord Bute's, and on by The Hermitage, Satley, and Broomshields, dov/n the valley to Gladdow, thence to Browney Bank, Colepike, Square House, Hamsteels, and down the Browney nearly to Hill Top. They crossed the river, west of Hill Top, and ran through the Langley coverts and Nursingfield Gill, killing in a little ravine at Holmside. Those who know the country and how far apart such places as Castleside and Holmside, or Broomshields and Holmside, are will appreciate the distance covered, which works out at over twenty miles, without allow- ing for the twists and turns. The time was three and a half hours, and seven were up at the finish. All the parts of the North Durham country which I have already described are on the western side of Durham and north of the river Wear. There remain a considerable district due north of Durham, and another portion of the country south of the Wear, and both were particularly popular not many years ago; but the collieries have increased both in size and number, and there are numerous " pit " railways and a good deal of wire. Indeed, this country has to a great extent collapsed, and, as far as I can judge, foxes do not often leave it now when hunted, but ring the changes from one covert to another, and seldom go very far afield. When Mr. Maynard lived at Newton Hall, about two miles north of Durham, Red House Gill was a famous place for sport, and meets at the kennels were always well attended. Red House Gill is a hanging covert on the river Wear, of considerable length, and opposite parts of it are the coverts of Cocken Hall, which also clothe the river banks, while further south, round a bend of the river, is Brass-side Wood. At times foxes would run up the banks and down the banks all day long, and vary the proceedings by crossing the river, and recrossing it again a little later ; but at the time I have in mind they used also to go far afield, and I recollect in one season that a fox from Red House Gill was killed by the lodge gate at Broomshields, and another in one of the meadows below Cole Pike Hall. In the first run, which very few saw, because the pack had divided. THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 35 and the smaller portion were throwing their tongues lustily on the banks when the bigger lot got away, hounds went to Hill Top, Kackwoodside, Hall Hill, and, passing to the east of Satley, caught their fox on the road a mile beyond the village, and just beyond the Broomshields Lodge. In the other hunt they ran by Barras Hill, Foalfoot, Cold Park, Burnhopeside, and Greenwell Ford to Colepike, and both gallops were equally good and with a long point. The main London toi Edinburgh line is on an embankment above the end of Red House Gill, and just where foxes used generally to break, and if hounds ^ot over it without being observed and went straight on it was not an easy matter to catch them. Towards the end of his mastership Mr. Maynard used to remain near this vital spot, where there is a farm road under the railway, and would not leave it until all chance of a fox crossing the line seemed to have disappeared. The Arbour House coverts. Bog Wood, the Black Dene at Southill — close by Plawsworth station — Potter House Wood, Barras Hill, The Hermitage covers, and a few small places at Whitehill conclude the tally of coverts in this part of the hunt, for the North Durham no longer go to Lambton Castle or Ravensworth, as they did, occasionally, in Mr. Maynard's time. South and east of the Wear much of the country which used to be hunted has been given up owing to industrialism. This applies chiefly to the ccuntry about Penshaw, Silksworth, Burdon, Rough Deaie, and so forth. The Cock en coverts are still hunted, and the south side of the river from Shincliffe to Whitworth, this including Croxdale, where foxes are numerous, Tudhoe, and Whitworth. There is a bit of nice country immediately south of Croxdale, but the best part of the North Durham south of the river is round about Shadforth, west and south of Elemore. This is good riding country, and very open ; but hounds do not go there so often as they once did, and lately I have observed that at least three meets out of every four are on the north side, and nearly half of them in the western end of the country. Having described the country, I may go on to say that the North Durham Hunt was established in 1872. Before that date the Durham County hounds hunted what are now the North and South Durham countries, and I do not intend to 36 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. write much about what took plsice previous to the division of the country. The bare facts as to the roll of Masters and so forth are to be found in Mr. Richard Ord's book Sedgefield in the 'Seventies and 'Eighties, and also in Bmly's Hunting Directory ; but since the division of the country I have known the North Durham intimately, and, as I have explained, I had a full season with the Durham County before the division took place, and scores of days in Christmas and Easter holi- days. My very earliest recollection of the Durham goes back to the late 'fifties, when as an infant I saw hounds at Wood- lauds, and scrambled after them on a pony. I think Tom Harrison must have been huntsman then, but I did not really know any huntsman until Dowdeswell came in 1867. Tom Harrison (whose nam© wets John) committed suicide in 1860, being afraid of going blind, and there was a quaint story cir- culated in the hunt for long enough afterwards to the effect that hounds were brought to a meet one morning by the two whippers-in. Up came the Master — Colonel Johnson — and asked where Tom was. " Please, sir, he's put himself down," answered the whip, sawing away at his cap, and v.'hen inquiries were made it was found that the story was true, and hounds were sent home. Colonel Johnson gave up the mastership at the end of the 1860-61 season, and was succeeded by the late Mr. John Henderson, M.P., for Durham City, who was only in office for a single season, and who was followed by a com- mittee, which w£ts in existence for two seasons. In 1865 Mr. Henderson came forward again in conjunction with Mr. John Harvey, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and the joint mastership lasted until 1872, when the country was divided, and Mr. Harvey became the first Master of the South Durham. It was during this joint mastership that I had my first real spell of hunting, and as I always thought hunting the one great be all and end all of life, it will be understood that things impressed them- selves on my memory even more forcibly than they have since done. I can aictually remember certain hunts which took place in the season of 1867-8 almost field by field, and I can recall to mind nearly everyone who was hunting with the pack, how they rode, and so forth ; and one pathetic and yet comic scene I can remember which took place in Long Edge lane, just west of Browney Bank. Hounds had met at the place THE NORTH DURHM^ COUNTRY. 37 just named — as they did nearly every Monday when hunting the northern part of the country — and Dowdeswell, after five or ten minutes' law, moved up the lane, intending to draw the Freehold, and if he did not find there to go on to Rippon Burn. Neither of the Masters was present, and the hunts- man had not gone a quarter of a mile when he was suddenly ordei'ed to stop. What had happened was that a dispute had arisen between three magnates of the hunt, each of whom wanted some of his own coverts drawn, and it was not until hounds had moved off that they realised the pack were being taken to coverts owned by a fourth party, who did not hunt but was a fine fox preserver. I have explained that Browney Bank is handy for a whole string of coverts, but unless any special arrangements had been made it was cus- tomary to draw the Woodlands coverts first, and in this par- ticular case Dowdeswell had orders from Mr. Henderson to carry out the usual programme. But one member wanted the Triangle and Stobilee drawn; another wanted hounds to go to Butsfield, of which he had the shooting; and the third was most anxious for hounds to be taken to Stockerley Gill, and thence to the coverts near his home. Each of the three claimed that it was his turn, and Dowdeswell was assailed with a number of direct orders. There was a big field, who, I seem to remember, rather enjoyed the row, for the rivalry as to finds between these squires was rather pronounced at the time; but poor Dowdeswell was very much upset, and, after a time, he burst into tears, and, telling the whippers-in to look after the hounds, started to ride away, having stated in a broken voice that he was going home to send in his resigna- tion. Meantime the quairel was fast and furious, and there was talk of pistols for two or three couples at least, and so forth, and what might have happened one cannot say, but a deus ex machina in the person of a late comer appeared at a gallop, and announced that a fox had just crossed Long Edge a few hundred yards away. The huntsman was now out of sight, but the whips, without waiting for orders, galloped hounds to the spot, hit off the line, and, as luck would have it, fox and hounds almost crossed the huntsman — now more than a mile away — on his road home. The determination to resign was quickly forgotten, for Dowdeswell instantly joined 38 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. the pack, and the run which followed was just good enough to cause a general all-round reconciliation. During the joint mastership hounds used to be three weeks at the Sedgefield kennels and three weeks at the Elvet Moor — or Farewell Hall as they were generally called — kennels, alter- nately ; and during the three Sedgefield weeks there was no fox hunting in North Durham, and then it was that hunting with beagles and harriers had in a great degree to take the place of the foxhounds. But John Greenwell, then a boy of about fifteen, was living at Broomshields, and being tutored by the rector of Lanchester, to whose house he rode when it suited him — but not oftener. Indeed, he never thought of going near the worthy rector on a hunting day, and his Saturdays were, quite as a matter of course, devoted to sport. Very eagerly we used to scan the meets of Mr. Cradock's hounds (now the Zetland) for a Saturday meet within riding distance, and if they met about Hamsterley, or anywhere within a few miles of Witton-le-Wear we used to join forces at High Stoop, and have at least a morning with these hounds. The unfortunate thing for us was that Mr. Cradock's hounds always began at the outside of their draw, and went down country for their afternoon fox. Also, foxes found about Hamsterley seemed to have a knack of going anywhere but in our direction; but I remember on one occasion a very nice hunting run which began at Brussleton, and which, after covering a lot of country in nearly three hours, was ended by a fox going into a drain just by the gate of Witton Castle, and this meant that we could get home in a little over an hour. Twice during this season I went to meets of the Durham County in the Sedgefield country with my father, but on the second occasion I jumped a fence on to a plough, which was hidden, and lamed my pony badly. Luckily this happened at the end of the season, but I remember the circumstance well because of two things. First, this pony, said to be by Sweetmeat, and most certainly thoroughbred, was the best pony I ever rode, being almost of polo size and very fast, and, secondly, when I had got the pony intO' a farmer's stable, and the farmer had kindly administered first aid, I had to walk some seven miles, from the neighbourhood of Great Stainton to Darlington, before I found a veterinary surgeon THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 39 to send out to the farm. I have said that the Wolsingham haiTiers and the Durham beagles kept us going when the fox- hounds were at the other side of the coaintry, but during tlie particular season I have in mind Colonel Hawkes and Mr. Fred Lamb were joint Masters of the Newcastle and Gateshead harriers, and on at least three occasions these hounds were brought to High Wocdside Farm overnight and were often kept for a second day. High Woodside is situated in a delectable hare hunting country about two and a half miles east of Lanohester, and hounds would meet there one day, and at Newbiggen or Harbuck on the next, and betwei-n the two hunts there would be a gathering of the clans at Woodside Farm, and much festivity. The farmer was oae of the right sort, and the bast singer of " A southerly wind and a cloudy sky " I ever heard, and in order that his hos- pitality should not be too severely taxed, it was customary to send him a hamper of wine, and another of game, and so forth when he was threatened with a supper visitation. The joint Masters of the pack and other congenial spirits would be located at some of the neighbouring houses, but they all met at Woodside Farm about seven o'clock for a sort of picnic dinner — ^which always ended with songs and toasts. For some seasons the Durham County were a four days a week pack, but this was in the middle of the last century. I do not think they ever advertised four days in my recol- lection, though at times bye days were frequent. Mondays was for the west of the country, and three days out of four the meet was at Browney Bank. Wednesday meets were always on the east side of the Wear, about the coast from Silks worth to Castle Eden, and round about Shadforth and Elemore, and Friday was in the centre of the hunt, but almost invariably on the north side of the river Wear. The Brance- peth country was hunted on Fridays as a rule, and the country about Red House Gill and north as far as Lambton, and also the country round Sacriston and Hclmside. Lanchester was a Monday meet, but the first draw was the long-defunct whin at Boggle Hole, and if that failed hounds were generally taken westwards. Witton Gilbert, only four miles from Durham, was at times a Monday meet, and would be adver- tised with the addition of " for Hill Top," and this meant 40 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. drawing west. On a Friday Witton Gilbert " for Langley " would be advertised, and this meant Sacriston, Nursingfield, and so forth. At the time I am writing of fields with the Durham County were very large compared with what they have since been. I was not often enough on the Sedgefield side of the country to be certain as to the numbers there, but when I did go — and a few years later I was there many times — the crowd was a large one. But it is of the Durham side that I can speak with knowledge, and I may explain that there were hunting people in nearly every country house between the city and the northern border of the hunt fourteen miles away, and many others from the neighbourhood of Chester-le- Street. There would be, at a low computation, five-and- twenty scarlets at a Browney Bank meet, but scarlet was, perhaps, more generally worn than it now is — at least in this particular country. Then, too, Mr. Harvey was a Newcastle man, and had a big following from his native town. Lan- chester is thirteen miles from Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Chester- le-Street eight miles from the same place, and as far as my recollection goes the biggest musters were at Chester Bar and Plawsworth Bar, both on the old coach road between Durham and Newcastle. Horses used to be sent to Lanchester over- night for Browney Bank meets, and their owners would drive the fifteen miles to the covert in the morning, except Mr. Harvey, who always hacked the full distance. In 1863 the Durham to Consett railway was opened, and it was possible to box to Lanchester or Knitsley, but. this involved a change at Durham for those coming from Newcastle or Sunderland, and though horses were sent by this route the hunting men usually held to the road. Three or four years later the rail- way was extended from Consett to Newcastle, and there was a handy train which left Newcastle a little before ten and brought hunting men and their horses to within a quarter of a mile of a Knitsley meet, or into Lanchester just at the right time. If hounds were at Browney Bank a little law would be allowed for the train contingent, and Knitsley became a favourite meeting place, and has remained so to this day. I have seen as many as seven horse boxes on this train while Mr. Harvey was in office, and four or five was a very usual THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 41 number. I have even known hunting men use this train for a Witton Gilbert meet, and to be unboxing while hounds were hunting a fox in Hill Top covert, but Hill Top was a quick find, and the risk of being left very great, so tlia custom never became general. Witton Gilbert, it should be ex- plained, is the station south of Lanchester and four miles away, and the train was quite ten minutes later in arriving there. Why it should have been the case that almost every house in the country districts of North Durham contained hunting people two generations ago and why an almost exactly opposite state of affairs prevails at the present moment is one of those curious facts which occasionally present them- selves and can hardly be explained, but it is none the less true, and thus it is that fields in this particular country are in these days hardly a fourth the size of those I first knew. But beyond the absence of hunting people from a number of country houses there are two other reaisons, one of which is that after Mr. Harvey's retirement much of his following turned to the Tynedale and Morpeth for sport, and the other that Sunderland hunting people now go to the Zetland and the South Durham more frequently than to the North Durham. This is greatly due to the fact that the trains between Sunderland and Lanchester are most inconvenient from a hunting point of view, while to the two hunts further south they are so numerous that if one is missed another can be utilised. A third reason is that whereas a great number of hunting people were resident in Newcastle and its suburbs diiring Mr. Harvey's mastership, many of the hunting folk who are connected with the commercialism of Newcastle now live in the Tyne Valley, and the upshot is that the Tynedale fields are very considerably larger than those I can first remember, while in the Braes of Derwent country the increase has been even more marked, so much so, indeed, that I have counted 120 riders at a meet which I can remember attended by half a dozen only. But the western country of the North Durham is as good as ever it was from a scenting point of view ; it contains very little wire, and if there are not so many foxes as there were when hounds met so frequently at Browney Bank there are still quite enough for sport, for there were far too many some years ago, 42 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. and this is proved by the fact. that. Mr. RogersxDii has killed mere than any of his predecessors did becan&e hei did not change so frequently. Time was when it was almost impossible to run a fox into any of dozens of Ncrtii Durham coverts with- out putting up fresh foxes, and on this point Mr. Majmard used to enlargei at. length and at. times would only have a very small tract of country stopped. " Shall I stop for your Lanchester meet on Monday? " would be asked. " Certainly not; there are far too many foxes above ground every Mon- day," he would say, and would chance running to ground. Now Mr. Rogerson often has ten miles of country stopped, but I am inclined to think he and his partner, Capt. Frank Bell, find just about the desirable number of foxes, for they are not so bothered with frequent, changes. Mr. Anthony Maynard's mastership of the North Durham, which extended over a period of twelve seasons, was a singu- larly happy one, first-rate sport being the rule rather than the exception from the first to the last season of the twelve. Mr. Maynard, who owned property at Skiningrove, not far from the Yorkshire coast, between Saltbum and Whitby, had been hunting all his life, chiefly with the Cleveland, the Hurworth, the Duke of Cleveland's (afterwards Mr. Cradock's, and now the Zetland). He was a fine judge of a hunter, being, in fact, almost world renowned in that capacity, for he judged at the Dublin Show when a very young man, and continued to officiate there, from time to time, until he was well advanced in years. He judged also at all the most important shows in the kingdom, and it was frequently said that his decisions were very seldom upset by other judges. He was not a young man, as far as years are concerned, when he came to Newton Hall, but when he took the North Durham he was physically the youngest man of his age we ever knew, and he had the spirits of a boy, and extraordinary enthusiasm for everything connected with horse and hound. He was a cheery optimist, in fact, and a rare sportsman, with very great knowledge of hunting, and he quickly became immensely popular in the North Durham. Indeed, he was hardly looked upon as a stranger, for the first Mrs. Maynard was a Wilkinson, of Harperley, in the North Durham country, while his second wife was a daughter of Canon Ridley, of THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 45 Durham, and a cousin of Lord Ridley. It need hardly be said then that Mr. Maynard had some acquaintance with the country, especially the centre of it west of Durham, but the northern part he did not know, and I have a lively recollection of showing him the coverts in the extreme north of the hunt shortly before his first season commenced. He drove oiit from Newton Hall to Browney Bank, where I met him, and during a long summer afternoon I not only showed him all the coverts within a considerable distance of that place, but introduced him to many of the farmers. With these same farmers he quickly became a great favourite, and before he had completed his first season he probably knew a very great majority of those who farmed the land within the confines of the hunt. I may add that Mr. Maynard was a large and highly successful farmer himself, and if I recollect rightly he had some 600 acres of mixed land in his own hands round about Newton Hall, and I also remember that he had a big local reputation as a feeder of fat stock, who often secured the top prizes at the Christmas auctions. But it is Mr. Maynard's hunting that I have to do with now, and I must admit to having felt great admiration for his methods, as soon as I came to understand them, which was not until he had held office for at least two seasons. Indeed, between 1868 and 1873 I did not see much of the Durham country, but had made acqiiaintance with many other packs, notably the Ledbury, Lord Coventry's (now the Croome), the Worcester- shire and North Herefordshire, Heythrop, Bicester, Old Berks, and South Oxfordshire. I had had four full seasons divided among these eight packs, and I had seen many other packs on odd days, and as I had been " taking stock " all the time I think I may say, with all modesty, that I was in a position to understand ^and appreciate the style in which Mr. Maynard was hunting the country. His hounds, to begin with, were to a great extent a scratch pack, for dumb madness had visited the pack shortly before the division of country was made, and though drafts had been sent as free gifts from many Masters, the pack was a scratch one in the sense that it had not been bred in North Durham. The kennels were at Newton Hall (Mr. Maynard's residence), and the Master at once began to breed hounds, and very soon had 44 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. a good working pack, in which there was plenty of first-rate blood from high-class kennels, to say nothing of a strain of Welsh blood introduced, I think, by Captain Apperley. The gentleman just referred to, by the way, acted as huntsman for three months or so, one season, when Haverson, the pro- fessional huntsman, had broken his leg. At exactly what period this occurred I do not remember, but it was, I think, about the middle 'seventies, and I was out of the country most of the time, but recollect a first-rate day from Xiord Bute's, and another in the Comsay country. Captain Apperley, who had hunted harriers, otter hounds, and fox- hounds also, I believe, in Wales, was a born huntsman, and showed excellent sport. He was for many years secretary of the hunt. In 1884 Mr. Maynard resigned, and for the next four seasons the hunt was managed by a committee of four, Richard Preeman, who had followed Haverson as huntsman during Mr. Maynard' 3 last two seasons, continuing to carry the horn. Mr. Maynard was one of the original committee, the others being Lord Durham, the late Mr. (afterwards Sir) Lindsay Wood, and the late Mr. George Taylor Smith. There were changes during the four years, and for a season or two the late Mr. H. Chapman, of Silk&worth, repre- sented the Sunderland side of the country. For a time things worked well, but the fields gradually fell off in si^e, and this was due, not> to a lack of good sport, but because several very prominent hunting men had died, while one or two others were giving up hunting on account of in- creasing years. Fields, it should be mentioned, were very good throughout Mr. Maynard's mastership. It is true that the Newcastle-on-Tyne contingent rather fell away, though At odd times there would be a big visitation on a Monday, caused in a great measure by the fact that the Tynedale were meeting in the Capheaton and Kirkheaton district, twenty miles or so from Newcastle, and with no railway very near it. At such times, if the North Durham were near Knitsley or Lanchester there would be many horse boxes on the morning train from Newcastle, and a cheery meeting among many old hunting friends. But while Newcastle was not on the whole so well represented in the North Durham as it had been when THE NORTH DURHAM COUNTRY. 45 Mr. Harvey was Master, there was throughout Mr. IMaynard's mastership a largely increased attendance from the Sunder- land side of the country, and this continued through the com- mittee period, and has not altogether ceased, though, as I have explained, the Zetland and the South Durham are now much more handy for the Sunderland division. What Mr. Mavnard found when he came was a resident population of foxhunters, and what Mr. Rogerson had to face when he took hold — after the committee period was over — in 1888, was a lot of big houses, either empty, or with few hunting people living in them. Still, the good fields continued, for a fair amount of fresh blood had joined the hunt, and there were always the " young 'uns coming on," to say nothing of a steady increase in the number of hunting ladi^. There was, after a time, a falling off on the east side of the country, as a matteir of course, for when certain parts of the country were given up, so few meets were within riding distance of many of the hunting folk that they were obliged to hunt by train, and this meant that packs which afiorded a better train service were preferred to the North Durham. The increase of indus- trialism was the real cause of this state of affairs, but now the hunting areas are very definitely marked, and attempt is seldom made to take hounds where there is a network of rail- ways, or a plethora of colliery villages. After Mr. Maynard resigned fresh kennels were requisitioned at Viewley Grange, on the Southill estate, owned by Colonel H. T. Fenwick, and Mr. Rogerson continued to use these kennels until 1906, when he built new kennels on his own property at Mount Oswald. The Viewley Grange kennels were rather too far north of all the most used country, and too far from the Master's residence, which is on the south side of Durham. Curiously enough, the new kennels are so near the old northern kennel of the Durham County pack that the same house in which Dowdeswell lived is used by the present kennel huntsman. In 1906 Freeman retired, and since then Mr. Rogerson carried the horn, until, on account of his many duties in connection with the war, he was obliged to surrender his task to Hepple, who had been kennel hunlsonan during the previous season, Mr. Rogerson's long mastership has been a most successful one, during which a fine standard of sport has been 46 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. maintained, except during a period of two or three seasons when mange played havoc with the country. All the northern packs were visited in turn by this terrible disease, but from what I saw and heard I think the North Durham suffered most, and for a time it was odds of 10 to 1 that every fox followed by hounds was mangy. For Mr. Rogerson and his staff the state of affairs was most exasperating, but they battled on in dogged fashion, putting down all the mangy foxes they could kill, destroying old earths, and bringing in new blood when a suitable place cotdd be found ; Norwegian foxes, perhaps of a rather bigger type than the original foxes of the district, were importeid, and after a year or two these seemed to strengthen and improve, and at the present day North Durham foxes are probably as good as can be found in any part of the kingdom. In 1919 Capt. Frank Bell joined Mr. Rogerson in the masitership, and for the la&t two seasons has acted aa huntsman to the pack. CHAPTER II. The Braes of Derwent Country. During the greater part of Mr. Rogerson's master sJiip of the North Durham — since 1896, to be exacti — Mr. Lewis Priestman hsis been IMaster of the Braea of Derwent hounds, which, as has: been explained, join the North Durham on its northern boundary. Time was when the two hunt.3 were very separate and distinct affairsi, each having its own field, and neither going very frequently over its own border. But during the last twenty years there has been a gradual but steady increase of general interest between the two hunts, caused by members of each hunt hunting constantly with the other. The two establishments are of course quite distinct, and the boundaries of the two hunts well defined ; but as many as two-thirds of the North Durham field are very regular in their attendance at the Saturday meets of the Braes of Derw^ent, and the Master and other members of the last-mentioned pack rarely miss a North Durham Monday. It is only when the North Durham are on the south side of the Wear or the Braes of Derwent in their Blaydon country that the field is not composed of people living in either country, and, as a matter of fact, most of the hunting people between the Wear and the Tyne are now members of both hunts. The two Masters have been friends from boy- hood, and motor-cars and increased train services have so facilitated matters that it is quite simple to reach meets of hoimds that were a generation ago almost impossible. Then, again, either pack runs moi'e frequently into the other's country than was formerly the case ; and this is perhaps rather difficult to understand, but is nevertheless a fact. I can remember a season in which I never missed a Monday with the North Durham, and never saw them over their northern boimdary, and I can remember another, about the same period of time, in which they ran once to the Pont from Gladdow. More recently I have seen the Braes of Derwent 48 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. go well into North Durham country five or six times in a season, and the longest point I ever saw with the North Durham took hounds right across the Braes of Derwent country into the Hay don country beyond. Of course, there may have been many incursions on the part of one pack or the other when I was not present, or which I have forgotten ; but the Braes of Derwent now hunt the western end of the Derwent valley much more frequently than they did in Colonel Cow en's time, and as most of the incursions begin in the Sneep district I have little doubt but that their increased number is greatly due to the fact that the chances of such incursions have been more than doubled owing to the greater number of westerly meets. These incursions of either pack ax^e very popular, though five people out of every six who may be hunting when they take place are just as much at home in the invaded country as in the country left. The Braes of Derwent country as regards its physical condi- tions is in many respects very different from its neighbour. It is perhaps in the lie of the land that the chief difference is to be found, for whereas all the best part, of the North Durham is a high-lying semi-plateau, with innumerable small folds in the ground, the Braes of Derwent country is inter- sected by a backbone or ridge of hill, from which the ground slopes gradually to the Derwent on the south and to the Tyne on the north side. This ridge is about twenty miles in length, rising abruptly some four miles west of Newcastle-on-Tyne, just where the Derwent joins the Tyne, and continuing west- wards until it is lost in the moorlands. The rise in the height of the ridge is very gradual, but in the centre of the country it reaches 1000 ft., and hereabouts the rivers are five and six miles away from the ridge, the intervening country consisting for the most part of pasture land, all on a gentle slope, and which is excellent scenting ground. Mr. Priest- man's kennels are at Tinkler Hill, half a mile from Shotley Bridge, on the Durham side of the Derwent; but about nine-tenths of the hunting takes place in Northumber- land, and yet the kennels are fairly well placed, no meet being more than about ten miles away. The fact is, the country is long in proportion to its width, for the hunting area has been gradually changed, and now hounds seldom THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 49 go far east and south of the river Derwent, whereas in earlier days they hunted a large tract of country which included Ravensworth, Taniield, Beamish, and Urpeth, and which now contains too' many collieries for sport, though in an ordinary way Mr. Priestman takes hounds to Beamish Hall once a year, and always finds foxes — ^which are difficult to hunt on account of the surroundings. Much of this country belonged at one time to the North Durham, and I have seen Mr. Maynard's hounds draw TIavensworth, Urpeth, and Beamish, and run to the Causey coverts near Tanfield ; but some five and twenty years ago a passenger line from Birtley (on the main London and Edinburgh railway) to Consett was opened, and the Masters O'f the North Durham and Braes of Derwenti agreed that this sihould be the boundary line between the two hujitsi. A hundred years ago all thisi country was part of Mr. Ralph Ijarabton'g hunt, his northern kennelsi being in Lambton Park, not three miles from Urpeth, and foxes used to travel between Lambton and the immediate neighbourhood and the lower end of the Derwent valley. Indeed the late Mr. John Taylor Ramsey, who had seventy years' experience of hunting in this district, and who died a few years ago, when not far short of ninety years of age, used to tell me how he was blooded by Ralph Lambton in Axwell Park with a fox which had been brought from the neighbourhood of Penshaw, and was killed by the lake at Axwell. No doubt the country was entirely open in those pre-railway days, when the coal industry was in its infancy; but the face of the country has been greatly changed between the places named, though Mr. Rogerson only gave up drawing round about Penshaw a few years ago. Before describing the coverts and the present hunt- ing area of the Braes of Derwent country it will perhaps be as well to say something as to the history of the pack, and I may at once state that an impenetrable veil of mystery svirrounds the early hunting of the district. We know that a Mr. Humble, of Eltringham, had a trencher-fed pack of fox- hounds towards the close of the eighteenth century, and we also know that a Mr. Humble was hunting the country when Sir Matthew White Ridley was hunting on the northern bank of the Tyne. Now, Sir Matthew's pack was, according to all available authorities, established in 1818, and he hunted B 50 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. what are the Morpeth and Tynedale countries — or at least a considerable part of them. Nearly opposite Mr. Humble's house at Eltringham is a fine Tynedale covert, known as Horsley Wood, and Mr. Humble had been in the habit of taking his hounds there long before Sir Matthew had a pack of hounda. But Mr. Humble's hounds were trencher fed, and perhaps rather poorly supported. Anyhow, when an orthodox and smart hunting establishment was established north of the Tyne the landowners one and all transferred their allegiance to the new hunt, and Mr. Humble had to curtail his forays on what are now the Tynedale coverts. The story goes that Sir Matthew's hounds on one occasion drew Horsley Wood blank, and while hounds were drawing a gamekeeper informed the Master that the covert had been well routed out on the previous day by " the Eltringham dogs." Sir Matthew was veiy angry and as he reached the end of the covert where the field was gathered he saw Mr. Humble and opened on him in voluble language. For five minutes at least he poured forth a volley of abuse, and then stopped to take breath, when " Squire " Humble, as he was always called, took his pipe out of his mouth, and quietly observed, " Gan on. Sir Mattha " (local for Matthew), " gan en; I can bide a bit mair." The baronet's battery was completely spiked, as the field burst into a roar of laughter, and, as the polo people say. Humble rode off with all the honours of victory. It is probable that after Mr. Humble's death there was a period in which the Braes of Derwent country was unhunted, for I can find no record of the Durham County pack travel- ling so far north, but they ran into it occasionally, and I believe most frequently between the Durham coverts at Greencroft and that part of the Derwent Valley which is known as the Pont Gill. But in 1837 a new pack, called the Prudhoe and Derwent Hounds, were established, and hunted the eastern part of the country for several seasons. How long this pack was in existence I am not sure, and I have never been able to find evidence of its doings after the year 1843. In that year Mr. Thomas Ramsay was Master, and he may have held on a year or two longer, but of that I am not certain. Some time during the forties there was a pack of foxhounds at Slaley, trencher fed, I believe, and they hunted what is now THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 51 the westeirn part of the Braes of Dei^went country, and a great deal of the present Haydon country. Slaley is just within the present Haydon boundary, and it should be explained that the Haydon began as a harrier pack, and its records go back to 1809. I have, or had, a Haydon button which was engraved with the letters H. H. and a running hare, and this button was taken from a scarlet coat, with a stand-up collar, which had been originally worn by a member of the Lee family, of Land Ends, near Haydon Bridge, and it was thought that the coat had been made al:)out 1830, ox a little, but not more than a year or two, later. When the Haydon changed from hare to fox I do' not Jcnow, but Mr. Nicholas Maughan, of Newbrough, was Master of the pack known as the Slaley prior to 1845, when he took over what is now the Tynedale countiy, of which he was the first Master. It should be further explained that Mr. Ralph Lambton's hounds were given up — owing to the ill-health of their owner — in 1838, and that for five or six seasons there was a hunt named the " Northumberland and North Ilur- ham," of which Mr. Robertson, of Lees, was Master. Where exactly they hunted it is difficult to say, but all my inquiries go to prove that they were much more on the north than on the south side of the Tyne, and I have never heard that they hunted the Derwent Valley.* Sir Matthew White Ridley, who had what are now the Tynedale and Morpeth countries, was, with his son, in office until 1844, and the Northumberland and Durham Hunt was dissolved a year later; but I believe Sir Matthew had given up or lent some of his country to the newcomer, who, it is just possible, also hunted that part of the North Durham which is nearest the sea, and is now unhunted because of the increased population. What is pretty certain is that in the 'forties the Prudhoe and Derwent were hunting the small country which now forms the eastern part of the present Braes of Derwent country, and that when the Slaley pack were in existence the boundary of the two countries was the Watling Street, which crosses the Derwent at Ebchester and the Tyne at Corbridge, * It is explained farther on that this pack hunted in North Northum- berland, and that their country included a portion of the County of Durham which was there located, E 2 52 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. or possibly the Milkwell Burn, which rises on the ridge near Ash Tree, and reaches the Derwent a mile or so east of Ebchester. From the top of the ridge on its northern side another burn or brook has its spring, and reaches the Tyne near Wylam; and I have heard it argued that these two brooks, which to a great extent form the county boundary between Northumberland and Durham, were also the boundary of the two hunts. On the other hand, I have heard the late Mr. Thos. Ramsay say that he used to meet at Whit- tonstall, on the Watliiig Street, almost midway between the Tyne and Derwent, and also at Branch End, which is many miles west of Wylam. It is of little consequence now, and it is also quite certain that these hunts of between seventy and eighty years ago were not very particular as to their boundaries, for they were very primitive affairs as compared with present-day hunts, and in every way far more local than are the modern establishments. By this I mean that they were hardly heard of outside their own district, that their following was small and greatly composed of farmers, that they included no hunt clubs and did not always posisess a com- mittee, that they seldom advertised, that they hunted with many fewer hounds that is now considered orthodox, that they invaded each other's districts almost whenever it suited them, and that they knew or cared very little about the pomp and circumstance of the sport. But for all that they meant busi- ness, for the moving spirits were chiefly young men, many of whom were hunting regularly with more pretentious and better turned out packs, but who nevertheless found time to harry the foxes round their homes with what Surtees — perhaps very aptly described as a " cry of dogs." Mr. Thomas Ramsay — always called Tom — -was quite a character, but more of a riding than a hunting man. I remember when I was a youngster hearing him described as " a devil to gallop and jump," but from what I have heard he was not much of a hound man, and a veteran who^ used to hunt with him used to speak of his pack as being " of all sizes and shapes." Mr. Ramsay was, however, a jovial man and a bit of a wag, and I was once present when he floored a " nut " of the period in fine style. The incident happened a great many years ago, long after Mr. Ramsay had given up THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 53 huuting, and at a time when he thought more of the gun than of horse or hound. He was then living at Sherburn Tower, and whenever he travelled on the local railway his company was eagerly sought by any of the youngsters who might be using the same train. On this particular occasion four or five of us were in a railway carriage in Newcastle station, and the train was on the point of starting when a tremendous swell, followed by a porter bearing luggage, arrived just in time to secure the only vacant seat. A perfect armoui-y of gun cases and other shooting paraphernalia were handed in and stowed away on the rack, and the train had hardly left the station before the newcomer gave tongue. He was affable to- a degreei, and though we were all strangers to him he at once fired off a volley of questions as to the locality, the shooting, and so forth. He was bound for the moors further up the line, and he had just left a Scotch moor, where — according to his own account^ — he had done wonderful things. Stories of his prowess were poured out in quick succession, and at last he told us how a day or two before he had bagged thirteen grouse with twelve cartridges. Mr. Ramsay sat in the corner, with a merry twinkle in his eye, and at last struck in: " That's nothing," he said, " nothing wonderful at least. I once had nine shots at the same hare, and never touched it, and that w^as thirty years ago, before most of you were born." Our new friend rose like a fish to the bait. " Excuse me," he said, " but thirty years ago there were only muzzle loaders, and if you did not touch the hare it would have been in the next parish before you were ready to fire again." " That's all you know about it," replied Mr. Ramsay. " It was like this. I was standing in the comer of a field, and in front of me, about thirty yards away, there was a large haystack. After a while I saw a hare coming quietly along by the stack. I fired and missed, and loaded again, and the hare went out of sight. But she kept on cantering round the stack, and every fifth time she came past I had a shot and missed." The story- was received with roars of laughter, and was the last story told in that particular train that afternoon. After Mr. Ramsp.y gave up the Prudhoe and Derwent hounds there was a break of ten or eleven years before the lat-e Mr. Wiliam Cow en formed his pack, and it is questionable 54 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. whether the eastern end of the county was hunted at all regularly during this period. The Slaley hunted the north- west part of the district, more particularly the country about Healey and Minster acres, and Mr. Maughan was Master of the pack, but, as has been explained, in the late 'forties he hunted a great deal of what is now the Tynedale country as well, and all the information I have been able to gather goes to suggest that though he paid a good deal of attention to the country south ol the Tyue he seldom went east of the West Auckland turnpike, which crotises the Derwent at Allansford and reaches the Tyne at Corbridge. My father had much of his early hunting with Mr. INIaughan, and he used to tell me that so much country was available it was impossible to hunt it all anything like fairly. I re'm ember Mr. Maughan very well as a neat, horsey-looking man, not unlike Mr. John Elarvey, of Durham, in his get-up and general ai3pearance, and I have always heard that he was devoted to sport. It was a son of his who many years later was for a few seasons Master of the Haydon, and who had several disputes with the Tynedale abont the boundaries of the two hunts. The fact is, that this boundary question was always a difficult one after there came to be more orthodox packs in the district, and the trouble probably arose because of Mr. Maughan taking over the Tynedale country, or a great part of it, when the Northumberland and North Durham Hunt was dissolved in 1845; while he at the same time retained and hunted the Slaley country. A hunting atlas, published in 1856, bears out my idea as tO' the Ebchester to Riding Mill-road being the boundary between the Slaley and the Prudhoe and Derwent, for in the year just named, when Mr. Maughan was Master of the Tynedale, and hunting occasionally in the Slaley district as well, the newly-formed Tynedale country, according to the map, included on the south of the Tyne all the western side of the present Braes of Derwent country and all the eastern end of the present Haydon country. Indeed, the boundary on the map is almost the line of the road — Riding Mill to Ebchester — and this map was published after and not before Mr. William Cow en established his pack. All the Shotley coverts and the Sneep are marked as Tynedale country in this map, but I never heard of the Tynedale drawing either of THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 55 the places just named. On the other hand, I have seen the Tynedale draw Minsteracres frequently, even during Mr, Straker's mastership, but not since Mr. Priestman took the Braes of Derwent. I have also seen the present Master of the Tynedale draw the Whin covert at Birkenside, which is actually in the Derwent Valley, and I have seen the Tynedale run to Broadoak, which is on the Derwent, a couple of miles east of the Ebchester to Riding Mill-road. But leaving the boundary question for a moment, I must mention that for several seasons, in the late 'forties and early 'fifties, my father, the late Mr. J. B. Richardson, had a pack of foxhounds which were kennelled at Castleside, a mile south of Allansford, and which for some years had sport which \aried a good deaJ but was at times brilliant. The pack, which never exceeded fifteen and was more often only twelve couples, was — curiously enough — first got together for the purpose of hunting wild roc- deer, which were then exceedingly numerous at the Sneep, Lord Bute's plantations and other big coverts in the Derwent Valley, and also on the Woodlands Estate, which, as the crow flies, is only two miles from Lord Bute's and about four from the Sneep. Deer used to' travel between these various strongholds constantly, and there is still an odd one left, capable of giving a good deal of trouble when hounds take up his line in a big woodland. It was decided then that these deer should be hunted, and the Duke of Cleveland, with whose hounds Mr. Richardson frequently hunted, gave a draft of five or six couples, which was supplemented by odd couples from other kennels. But the deer received very little attention. They were difficult to find, and foxes were numerous, and it quickly became the custom to hunt the foxes and leave the deer to be shot. The hunt was a very private one; it never advertised, and had no very regular hunting days, because its chief supporters were hunting with other packs, while a good many of them were engaged in business. Besides Mr. Richardson, the late Colonel Hawkes, Mr. G. Hopper Burnett of Black Hedley, and the Bros. " Tom " and John Ramsay, were the most regular followers, and Mr. Surtees, the creator of Jorrooks, used to look on, mounted on a cob, but seldom took part in a run. Then there was a Yorkshireman named 56 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. George Maw, who' for some years lived at Riddlehamliope, west of Blaiichland, and he not only never missed a day with these hounds, but looked after stopping all the length of the Derwent Valley from the Sneep to his own place of residence, and was a sort of right-hand man to the hunt. This Mr. Maw was a very hard man across country, who rode thoroughbred cast-offs from the racecourse, and I remember when I was a very small boy being shown certain high walls he had jumped on Black Hedley farm, and thinking what a hero he must have been. The " Castleside Dogs," as they were spoken of locally, doubtless furnished the talented author of Jorrocks with many ideas, but I am very strongly of opinion that nearly all of Surtees's best characters were of the composite order, that he took a certain peculiarity from one man, another trait from another man, and so forth, and that even in the matter of his many descriptions of costume he pursued the same line of action. It has, however, been an article of faith in the Derwent Valley for sixty years or more that Joseph — " Jos." Kirk he was always called — supplied a great deal of the general make-up of James Pigg. Kirk was a blacksmith by trade, but endowed with an extraordinary love of hunting. He was also a very determined horseman, who knew no fear, but he was hard on his mounts, and had no idea of saving them. He acted as huntsman to the Castleside pack, and certain stories are to be found about him and the Master, Mr. Richardson, in Hvnting in the Olden Times, by "W. Scarth Dixon. Whether Kirk was ever in the employ of Mr. Surtees I have never been able to find out, but I should explain that for a period after he came into the Hamsterley estate Mr. Surtees had a pack of harriers, with which he hunted the neighbourhood of his home. Hamsterley Hall is situated in the Derwent Valley, rather less than four miles from the present Braes of Derwent kennels and about double the distance from Castleside, and Mr. Surtees was living there and writing throughout the whole existence of the Castleside pack. But earlier in the eighteenth century a Mr. Brewis, who lived at the Hag, now part of the Hamsterley estate, also had a pack of harriers, and Mr. Richardson always had au idea that Kirk had been in his employ. Kirk was not by any means a young man when he THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 57 v/as at Castleside, and soon after the hounds were given up he left the district and was supposed to have gone back to Newcastle from which place he originally came. Some years ago an effort to trace him was made, but no trustworthy information v/as forthcoming, but it is almost certain that he had no further engagement in connection with hunting. Anyhow, he used many of the sayings which are put into Pigg's mouth by Surtees, and it will be remembered that when he (Pigg) makes his first appearance in the novel, Handley Cross, he speaks of having hunted with " Tynedale and D'orm (Durham) and Horworth and all." It is said that when Kirk lived at Castleside, which is within a mile of the Durham border he got a great deal of hunting with the Durham County — that he would be riding a farmer's three- year-old one day, a cart-horse the next, and an old pony on the third, and that, when he could not raise a horse, he hunted all day on foot, and was, as Surtees wrote of Romford, " a capital hand across country, whether on foot or on horseback." While I am on the subject of Surtees I may allude to some recent correspondence which has lately appeared con- cerning him in a weekly contemporary. The question of the whereabouts of Handley Cross Spa has been discussed, and Leamington, Cheltenham, and other places have been men- tioned, and more especially Croft. Probably the real fact is that the author indulged in a combination just as he used half a dozen people to make up one ol his characters; but of one thing I am almost sure, and that is that he never disclosed his originals, either of men or places. He was latterly a some- what silent man, and at no time was he what he would have called a " babbler." His conversation al powers were chiefly reserved for paper, and I remember, when quite a youngster (about five years old), how he took me on to his knee at a hunt breakfast, but said nothing, and there I sat, not liking to move, but wanting to go to the hounds outside. And apropos the Croft theory, one of the recent letters was from Charles Fox, who was huntsman to the Blackmore Vale from 1890 to 1897, and who says that, when he was whipping- in to the Hurworth, some years before, Mr. Surtees used to come there not to hunt but to fish in the Tees. V/ith all due deference, I think this story is probably v/rong. In the 58 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. first place, Mr. Surtees died in 1864, fifty-eight years ago, and though I am not certain about it, I imagine Fox's service with the Hurworth was at a later datei. Croft, is on the Yorkshire side of the Tees, Hamsterley on the extreme north of the county of Durham, some of the Surtees property being in Northumberland and yet only a mile or two away. And as there are other families of Surtees in South Durham, I think it probable that it was another Mr. Surtees which Fox remembers. The name of " Handley Cross " is taken from the Hamsterley estate, there being to this day a high bridge over a brook, between the lodge and the house, which was always called Handley Cross Bridge. The one character one knows of in Surtees's book which was actually drawn from a single man was that of " Independent Jimmy," in Rom- ford's hounds. He was a man who drove a two-horse covered waggonette between Newcastle-on-Tyne and Shotley Bridge, before the railway was made. The 'bus passed the Ham- sterley lodge every day, and its driver was on the road many years after Surtees died, and was absolutely true to the description. Even the story told in connection with Mr. Stotfold's staghounds was practically true, for the 'bus driver — whose name was either Bell or Brown — did actually take one of his horses and join in a hunt, leaving three market women sitting in his 'bus, to which he returned an hour and a half later, and calmly resumed his journey. Another character who has his original in the Derwent Valley was Mr. " Jogglebury Crowdey," who was Surtees's own tenant at Milkwell Burn. This worthy, whose name I have forgotten, was half -gentleman, half -farmer, and was constantly in trouble for trespassing after " gibby sticks." His costume, as he appeared in Sponge's Sporting Tmir, was exactly repro- duced from life, and also his " puff, blow, wheeze." He followed hounds for the puirpose of stick hunting, and there was a constant trespass feud between him and the Government official who resided at Chopwell House, in Chopwell Wood, a 1200-acre plantation, owned by the Crown, and undoubtedly the original of Pinch Me Near Forest. The description of Pinch Me Near in Handley Cross exactly tallies with the real Chopwell, and with such material at hand it is hardly likely that the author would go elsewhere when he wanted to describe THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 59 a forest, owned by the Crown, and administered by an official who had an enormous opinion of himself. It would be possible to name many people who afforded Surtees some of the pecu- liarities of a number of his best-known characters, and among these there would not be a single name which has appeared in the recent correspondence, but, as I have already mentioned, it is any reasonable odds that all the best figures in the series of novels were of compound character, and my views would merely be those which were adopted by residents of the locality in which Surte.es lived at the time the novels v/ere published. About the Spa I may say that in the 'thirties of the last century Shotley Spa was opened, a hotel built, and some attempt made to establish an inland watering place. It came to- little, how- ever, but that Surtees got his idea of a spa from that fact is exceedingly probable. Also it is probable that many of the scenes described in connection with Jorrocks had a local original, and notably the run to Ongar Castle, for the bath scene is said to have taken place at Seaton Delaval, on the Northumberland coast, and less than twenty miles from Ham- sterley, and there is a legend that hounds — what hounds I do not know — ran from the Derwent Valley to the Tyne, crossed the river, and ran to the sea at the very place. The Castleside pack had plenty of country — more, indeed, than they could hunt properly, considering how small the establishment was. They could go west as far as the moors, and by arrangement they drew the Woodlands coverts. Lord Bute's, Sheiep walks, and other places in the Durham County hunt during the three alternate weeks that the county pack were at Sedgefield. Mr. Richardson used to speak of having had the best sport from Sheepwalks, and no doubt this portion of the Durham hunt was then very wild and open and full of foxes. Wire fencing was unknown and foxes were held sacred by the farmers, who dearly loved a hunt. Many of the best coverts — and the shooting at Lord Bute's for a long period — were owned by Mr. Richardson's father, who' then occasionally resided at Woodlands, so there was no trouble about stopping. All the same, the twO' best hunts which occurred during the life of the pack both had their beginning in the Derwent Valley. The first of these began at the Sneep, and hounds actually ran to the steep hill above Hexham, where they 60 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. checked in a garden, and where Kirk, off his horse and looking for his fox, encountered the owner of the garden and had a rough-and-tumble sort of scrap with him. This incident, it has always been understood, was the foundation of the Pigg and the melon-frame story in Handley Cross, and there is every probability of its being true. But, curiously enough, the hunt was not at an end, for while the altercation was in progress the fox was seen creeping up the hill behind the garden, and hounds actually ran right back to the Sneep. On the outward journey they went by Espershields, and thence near Slaley, and on to Swallowfield, and over the hill to Hex- ham. On the return journey they again went through Swallowfield, and then over Corbridge Fell, and so to Minister- acres and the Sneep. The fox avoided Dipton, the biggest covert in the country, and from the fact that he went right back to where he was originally found it is only reasonable to assume that there was no change. Still, the distance is very great, with an eleven-mile point each way, but the pace was never great, and — I have been told — there were fewer foxes at the time north ol the Derwent than there were on the south side. Mr. Richardson used to say that in the late 'forties and 'fifties the Derwent Valley was stuffed full of foxes, but they were difficult to find on the higher ground near Minsteracres and Kellas. The Sneep was, as it is now, a gr^eat stronghold, and so also were the coverts near Blanchland. The hunt I have just described is, I find, mentioned in Hunting in the Olden Days, and so are two others, which I do not remember to have heard of, but the other great hunt I have in mind is not referred to in Mr. Scarth Dixon's book, and I wrote down the particulars when I heard the story some years ago from my father himself. I always knew vaguely of this run which the late Mr. Matthew Kearney of the Ford was fond of describing, and the description he used to give tallied almost exactly with Mr. Richardson's own account, but the latter used to say that Mr. Kearney only joined in half-way. The run in question took place in 1856, or the following year, after a meet at Shotley Lodge, where Mr. Richardson then resided, and where the present kennels are situated. Now there is a building estate half a mile south of the house, and a hill behind, THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 61 where there are many rows of cottages. Sixty years ago there was a single farmhouse where there is now a big population!, and it was all plain sailing over the top of the ridge between Medo-msley and Consett, where, indeed, there were heather-covered fields and larch plantations, and which were still in existence when I was a boy. There is, just above the present kennels, a long, narrow gill, which then was almost a mile in length, and was called Whiteside Plantation. The name is lost now, and much of the plantation disappeared when the branch line from Newcastle to Consett was made in the 'sixties ; but the gill, before the railway workers came, was a sure find, and on the occasion referred to hounds found in it, and went over Beiry Edge farm to Bunker's Hill, where they checked for some time. Indeed, they were on the point of going back to the covert, which had only been half drawn, when a single hound was seen a quarter of a mile in front. The pack were taken on, and ran to Boggle Hole, in the Durham country, whence they bore right-handed over the valley of the Smallhope to Newbiggen. They then crossed the since frequently used point-to-point course diagonally, and ran by the Roman encampment to Holly Bush, then a young gorse covert. They did not stop here, but went by Hamsteels, under the hill at Esh, and on to Hill Top, which, in those days, was not only a strong covert but had a big gorse on its western side. There was some delay here, but hounds got through the gorse and the wood beyond, and, going on faster than before, ran to the outskirts of Durham, killing their fox at Western Hill, a bare half-mile from the cathedra!. Mr. Richardson used to say that the pace from Bunker's Hill to Holly Bush was good, that they went very slowly, picking it out field by field between Holly Bush and Hill Top, and then went a cracker to the end. He also used to add that before they had broken the fox up more people had arrived than had been with him at the start. It happened to be a very fine day, and nearly sieventy years ago on any fine day lots of people would he riding about the country, and throughout the hunt they were constantly joined by the local population who had not been at the meet. From Shotley Bridge, half a mile from the scene of the find, to Durham is fourteen milea by a road which, in parts, follows) the Watling-street, and which is very 62 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. straight all the way. ITounds were never more than two' miles away from the road, and the point is just oiver twelve miles, while the country from the high ground at Berry Edge wa&, at that time — before there was a single colliery or a single line of rails in the Lanchester valley — capital riding-ground, three- quarters at least being grass, and the rest arable. Only three coverts were touched. Boggle Hole, Holly Bush, and Hill Top, and the two first-named are very small places, while Hill Top perhaps extends over thirty acres. About the time I have no information, and if it was taken it has long been forgotten, nor did the hunt ever find its way into print. But in my young days it was still being talked of when good runs were under discussion, and the late Mr. Edward Waldy, of Barmpton, near Darlington, who was staying at Shotley Lodge at the time, used to speak of it as " about the best thing he ever saw." About the " Castleside dogs " I have little more to say. From all the accounts which I used to hear they had plenty of fun for several seasons, and they were lucky in having a country in which there was little game preservation, except on the moors, next to no population, and some half-dozen enthusiasts to keep the game going. The forfeited Derwent- water estates, which covered a great deal of the country, had not then been broken up and sold, and there was also the Crown land about Chopwell. Further west a great deal of good country, with many coverts, was owned by the Dean and Chapter of Durham, or by Lord Crewe's trustees, which estates now belong to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The latter body, like their predecessors, are equally well disposed towards sport, and this Mr. Priestman has found during his six and twenty years of mastership. I may perhaps be allowed toi quote a footnote which is to be found on page 360 of Huntinfj in Olden Days, which is as follows: — " Stephen Goodall jumped in and out of the railway gates when with the Bramham Moor, and another fine jumping per- formance was that of the late Mr. Jonathan Richardson, who jumped in and out of a sheepfold at Stagshaw Bank. The walls were 5 ft. and 5 ft. 3 in. high, and the top courses were mortared. . . ." In 1854 a new hunt was formed in the Derwent Valley by THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 63 the late Mr. William Cowen, a son of Sir Joseph Cowen, and brother of the well-known politician, Mr. Joseph Cowen, and of Colonel John Cowen, who succeeded his brother as Master. All the brothers have been dead for a long period of time, bub for fnrty years two of them kept the country going on an almost nominal subscription, and enjoyed such popularity as is not always .vouchsafed to a Master of Hounds. Mr. William Cowen held office from 1854 to 1868, and Colonel Cowen from his brother's resignation until 1895, and for the greater part of the time the kennels were at Coal Burns, which is towards the eastern end of the ridge which divides the Tyne and Derwent valleys, and very central for the lower or Newcastle end of the country, but which involved long journeys to the western meets. Mr. William Cowen was a very keen sportsman, who kept racehorses and greyhounds as well as foxhounds, and who will be remembered by turfites as the owner of the first Ladas, which horse he sold to Lord Rosebery, then an Oxford undergraduate, for a large sum. The hor§e did not fulfil expectations, but his original owner was not to blame for that, nor had he overrated the colt's abilities as a two year old. I remember William Cowen well. He was a remarkably handsome man, and in hunting clothes suggested the type which is to be found in Herring's later hunting scenes. He was tall and a biggish weight, but got over a country in fine style, and was terribly keen on hunting. What country exactly he hunted on the north-western side of the present Braes of Derwent country I hardly know, for the Tynedale used to. come at times tx) Minsteracres and Healey throughout all the Cowen period, and in point of fact they were the real possessors of this part of the country, as suc- cessors to the Slaley hunt. But their visits were mostly paid in the cubhunting period, and during the spring of the year, and it is a fact that Mr. Cowen's hounds did very little cub- hunting at any time, and practically none during the later years of Colonel Cowen's mastership. But there was never any question about the district west of Shotley Bridge, for though the map of 1856 made it Tynedale country, that pack never came there, whereas Mr. William Cowen was constantly at the Sneep, meeting either at Greenhead or Allansford for the chain of coverts which extend from the place just named 64 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. almost to Eddy's Bridge. My early recollections take me back to a meet of " Mr. Coweu's hounds " — they were not called Braes of Derwent until Colonel Cowen became Master — at Shotley Lodge, and to another meet about the same time at Allansford. I scrambled after the pack on a small pony when very young, but throughout my boyhood I saw far more of the Durham country from Woodlands than I ever did of Mr. Cowen's hounds, except in the season of 1867-8, when I had several good hunts with them. As for the fields, or, rather, the size of the fields, I do not remeanber much, biit I am of the opinion that during both the Cowen masterships there were many more followers at the eastern end of the hunt than there were in the west, and that the meets in the Blaydon country, which is within an easy ride of Newcastle-on-Tyne, were most largely attended. In Colonel Cowen's time I know this was SO; and it is perhaps a little curious, because now the reverse is the case, the big fields with the present pack being nearly always in evidence when they meet near Shotley Bridge or in the Tyne Valley. It is the case, however, that during the Cowen masterships hounds were as a general rule in the east on Saturday and in the west part of their country on Wednesday, and Saturday is quite the most popular hunting day in that part of the world, more especially among the business men, who form a great part of these northern fields. That the rule of hunting in the west in the middle of the week was always strictly adhered to was not, however, the case, and I remember certain good Saturdays in the Allansford district during the earlier part of Colonel Cowen's mastership, and notably it was on a Saturday that hounds ran to Broom- shields from the Sneep, unattended, as I have already described. There was always a good deal of festivity in connection with Colonel Cowen's hounds, and at some lawn meets, especially in the eastern end of the country, there would be a big whip up of members of other hunts. The Master's house, Blaydon Burn, v/as the most popular fixture, and at times the Tyne- dale. North Durham, and Mr. Lamb's Harriers would be as well represented as the Braes of Derwent was. Once I re- member Mr. Maynard and a large number of the North Durham field being present, but what the special occasion THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 65 was I have forgotten, nor do I think that sport on that day was out of the ordinary. And here I must explain that I was never by any means a regular follower of the pack in Colonel Cowen's time, for when I was in the district I hunted in the Durham country as frequently as possible, the days of the last-named pack suiting me better, and also the fact that I was well within reach of all the best of the North Durham, and had been, so to speak, entered in that country. All the same, I saw a good deal of fun at odd times with the Braes of Derwent, especially during the middle period of Colonel Cowen's mastership, and it is my aim to' deal as much as possible with incidents at which I was present. I may perhaps be allowed to mention one or two days with Colonel Cowen which I shall never forget. One of these was a hunt I had all by myself, and which was, indeed, one of the best hunts I ever saw in the country. I was never a jealous man to hounds, and I have always regretted that I had no company in this particular hunt, but my having it all to myself was purely accidental. Hounds met at Priestfield (where there was a brea-kfast) and were put into the Pont Gill from the eastern side. As is usual at the Pont, they found quickly, and went up the Gill, the large field, which included several strangers, going up with them, but outside the Gill. Personally I always preferred to be on the Hamsterley side of this covert, and crossed the Gill. After a time hounds divided, and about twelve couples took a fox over to what is now called the Chimney Wood, adjoining Hamsterley Hall. I shouted for all I was worth, but the rest of the pack were running another fox in the main Pont Gill, and no one came. I then went in pursuit, caught hounds up at Long Close Gate, and crossed the river behind them at the Derwentcote ford. Going on fast, they skirted Milkwell Burn and went north of Ravenside, and over the ridge just east of Hedley- on-the-Hill. They next ran over a fine bit of country to Hindley, where they checked in the garden at Hindley Hall. They hit it off of their own accord, and went over the pastures of Bromley Farm to Fotherley, going on by the latest used point to point course to North Kellas plantation. Hounds were not 200 yards in front of me when they went over the boundary wall of the plantation, and my heart sank, for 66 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. I thought I should either lose them in the big woodland or that they would change on to a fresh fox. They entered the cover just where a small stream crosses the Lead road, and there is a gate and a road into the wood 300 yards away. I was going for this gate when I heard the growling of hounds close to me, and, looking over the wall where the trees were very thick, I found that hounds had killed their fox. I left my horse in the lane and soon had the fox over the wall, and as hounds were trying to pull their victim from me, I put the dead fox over the horse's shoulder and quickly mounted again. Hounds, knowing their fox was there, came all round, and I rode down the lane to Scales Cross, then three miles further to Whittonstall, where I saw a gleam of scarlet, and met Master, huntsman, and a great number of the field, who were looking for hounds, but were a good deal wide of the line the fox had taken more than an hour before. The fox was broken up in a field adjoining the village of Whittonstall, and I had both brush and mask for many years. As far as my recollection goes, hounds never checked after crossing the Derwent until they reached Hindley, and when they had re- covered the line they went steadily on. The pace was never very great except just at first, but there was a good holding scent from start to finish. This run took place — I am almost certain — ^in January, 1875, and here I may leave Colonel Cowen for a moment to describe another fine hunt in which Hindley figured, and which took place a year or two later, but came from the other end of the country. And the hounds which gave the run were a draft from the North Durham Kennel, which was for the time being located at Riddlehamhope. The place just named, it should be explained, is a somewhat famous shooting box on the moors, a good five miles west of Blanchland, rather " extra parochial " as far as the Braes of Derwent or the Hay don hunt are concerned. Indeed, I imagine that Colonel Cowen never drew the coverts near it, but the keepers were complaining of the damage done to grouse by foxes, and the then shooting tenant, the late Mr. " Dicky " Johnson, of Sherbum Hall, arranged with Mr. Maynard that Captain Apperley should bring up some of the old hounds from the North Durham Kennel, hunt, and if possible kill some of these THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 67 foxes. This waa in the early autumn of what particular year I do not remember, but some time in the 'seventies, nor have I any recollection of how Captain Apperley fared. What I do know is that I had a letter from John Greenwell one day, telling me he was going to have a hunt with these hounds, and asking me to go with him. We sent two horses on to Blanch- land, drove there one afternoon, saw the keeper — I think there was no one at the shooting lodge that week — and arranged to be at Riddlehamhope at eight on the following morning. Meantime we stayed all night at the popular Crewe Arms at Blanchland, and if my recollection is correct we arranged that one or two of the local farmers should join us in the morning. This same morning was very hot, and we drew the Triangle, Ellers Hill, and other coverts without finding. Hounds were then put into the Gill at Gibraltar, to draw down below Newbiggin House, andi here they found and quickly reached Deborah Wood, where they divided — we had only six or seven couples — but after a. time four and & half couples took a line out at the south end of the wood near the spot where there was once a lead mine. Going on southwards for a while, they did not quite reach the top of the hill, but turned towards Ruflfside, and we followed them as best w© could over the moor, hitting ofiF the Shotley Bridge-Blanchland road about a mile west of Edmundbyers. There had been some ten or twelve horsemen — mostly hill farmers on ponies — with us when we started, but when we left Deborah Wood we had lost all our following except one farmer, and we had also lost about two couples of our very small pack. The nine hounds which went through this run were, however, very staunch, and though they frequently checked, and were cast by John Greenwell, who carried the horn, they kept worrying on the line throughout a long autumn day. Reaching the lower ground below Hunter House the fox travelled down the river (Derwent) side to Redwell Hall, and then turned up the hill to Manor House. Of course he was not being pressed, and could pick and choose his ground, and, curiously enough, he had undoubtedly a great liking for the open, and either did not know or cared little for the coverts. From Manor House we worked across to Shotley Field, and hounds ran through the top end of Walker Shank — near which place a flight of J 2 68 HUNTING IN M.^NY COUNTRIES. rails which John Greenwell and I jumped, was still standing two or three years ago^ — and thence to Highfield and over the hill to Kipper Linn, where there was a long check, and we thought he must have got to ground in some rabbit holes. Hounds did not mark, however, but after a time hit off the line in the Gill below Lead Hill and hunted to Hindley, and into the big covert on Lord Allendale's property which lies between the Tyne and Broomley. If there was a change it took place here, for we got away on the Broomley side of the covert and went faster than we had gone all day to Fotherley Gill, where we slowed down again, but hounds recovered the line and carried it to Scales Cross and up the Minsteracres Dene to North Kellas, which we reached about dusk, and where we quickly lost hounds. John Greenwell had never been in Kellas in his life, and I knew very little about the covert, and, to cut a long story short, we were there for at least an hour after it was quite dark, and started to go back to Blanch- land with only one of the nine hounds. Two or three more caught us up on our homeward ride, and we sat down to dinner terribly exalted over such a hunt, but rather uncom- fortable about the lost hounds. After dinner we fell asleep on either side of the fire, but were soon roused upi by a rush of excited individuals who poured into the room, all talking at once. It appeared that a ' ' Dean and Chapter ' ' woodman from Blanchland had been at a funeral at Corbridge, and had been walking home during the afternoon. Being a local man, he knew all the short cuts, and had come through the western part of South Kellas — where there is a cart road — on his way home, and in the corner of the plantation he had come upon three couples of hounds with their dead fox. Having heard of the projected hunt overnight he knew what hounds they were, and cut off the mask and brush and put them in his pocket. He then began his five to six miles walk, but he had already been from Blanchland to Corbridge and back to Kellas, a distance of well over twenty miles, and therefore he was very slow on the road. The next thing that happened was that the hounds, with the two or three which had joined us, were fed and fastened up in a stable, and that I helped to brew a huge bowl of punch, a liquor for which the Crewe Arms was then greatly famed. THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 69 This was the longest hunt I over saw in my life, and the marvellous part of it was that so small a number of hounds should have been able to stick to a line in such fashion. Scent of course was undeniable, but I may explain for the benefit of those who do not know the country that we never went near a village (there are practically none in the district), nor very near a farmhouse, and, indeed, it would be difl&cult to find a country anywhere so quiet and peaceable as this on a day when hounds are not expected, but run into it from some distant place. John Greenwell a day or two later wrote an account of the hunt, intending to send it to a local paper, but it never went, and I have treasured it until the writing has become so faint that it is almost undecipherable. Those who know the country will appreciate the fact that with a fox found at Gibraltar and hunted — after the first half -hour — by nine hounds only, we traversed nearly two-thirds of the Braes of Derwent country, went round, and worked back to within about half a dozen miles of the place we had originally come from. Colonel Cowen was a tremendous favourite with all sections of society, and a kindlier man never wore scarlet. He had great enthusiasm, too, but he was not altogether orthodox in his methods of hunting a country, and, notably, concerning the hour of starting. This lack of punctuality was, however, entirely due to the fact that his friends, wherever he met, insisted on providing entertainment for the inner man, and though the Colonel (who was an early riser) and his hounds would be at the appointed place of meeting well before the advertised time ol half-past ten, he did not like to disappoint them. Strangers and occasional visitors to the pack at all times received a most hearty welcome, but the arrival of one or two late comers often meant further delay, pending the refreshment of the delinquents. I well remember one lawn meet at Sherburn Towers, then the residemce of the late Mr. Gray, for the gallop which followed what the Scotch call the " sederunt " was about the fastest and best I ever saw in the Colonel's country. I remember that I was very late, and also that on the road to the meet I caught up two neigh- bours equally late. We had hoped that hounds might not have got away from the first draw, and our road to the covert 70 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. took us past Sherburn Towers, where, rather to our surprise, we found that hounds had not moved off, and that a very large field was still being entertained. We were hailed and literally ordered to come in, and when someone ventured to suggest to the Colonel that the day wasi wearing on, he replied that we were certain to find in the whin, which was not a couple of hundred yards from the house. This whin was placed at the east end of Spen Bank Plantation, and has long beein ploughed out, but at the time I am writing of — the spring of 1884 — it was a nice covert. The move came at last, and as we entered the field it hardly looked promising to see do/ens of foot people all round the gorse. Hounds were being trotted across the field between the covert and the house when there came a halloa, and in a moment the pack were round the whin and into the wood. But this they left again in a moment, and fairly flew along the side of the hill to Nomian'p Riding and Snook Hill, when they went left-handed over the hill to the Brockwell Covert. This they did not enter, but skirted the boundary fence, and then ran up the valley of the Barlow Brook to Reely Mires. Thence they bent to the right and went by Sealbum, Bucks Nook, and the Duke's Hag, over a fine line of open country, to Hedley-on-the-Hill. Wheeling left-handed here, they ran over Airy Hill and by Ravenside to Milkwell Burn Wood, and going over the field adjoining the wood, hounds were running in view, coursing their fox, in fact, and though he found a rabbit hole in the boundary fence, he was quickly got out and killed. This was a fifty minutes' gallop over a fine, open country. There was no check, and the pace was first-rate throughout. But I have a sequel to tell, and first I may say the run was a good deal talked about for long enough, for everyone had a good start, and there was some rather tall riding, especially during the first twenty minutes. Well, many years after, since Mr. Priestman had the country, in fact, I was talking over certain old hunts with Mr. Gray, jun., and I mentioned this par- ticular run as being about the best thing I had ever seen in the country. " Yes," he replied, " I arranged that hunt well. The fact is, my father was very nervous that hounds might not find. There was no reason for his doubts, for, as you know, Spen Bank was always full of foxes, but I thought THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 71 I would make sure, so I had a fox ready in the Ravenside lane, and all the hunt up to that point was a drag, well laid so as to bring in the best country." He went on to say that when hounds were coming from Airy Hill to Ravenside the fox was shaken out of a bag, and the man who had done the trick hid himself among the fir trees of a tiny plantation, and no one was any the wiser. " I think the Colonel was a little suspicious," he also told me, but nothing ever transpired and everyone was pleaseid. Personally, I never had the least suspicion, but I did not know the habits of Spen Bank foxes as I do now, and at the time I thought that certain big coverts were avoided because the fox was being pressed all the way. With the farmers Colonel Cowen was a great favourite, and he was always doing someone or other a good turn. I have seen his farm cart ten miles away from Blaydon Bum, laden with hurdles for a farmer who had had a hole or two bored in his hedges, and I have taken part in entertainments which he provided for men who helped him by walking puppies or looking after foxes. I do not mean the ordinary puppy show entertainment, but little special treats which were much appreciated. For example, if hounds were in the Riding Mill district he would occasionally order dinner for a dozen or so at Havelock's Hotel, and if it was in the spring of the year he would send a monster salmon, a turkey, and perhaps a round of beef for the dinner. He would then invite any farmers he particularly wished to entertain, and during the day's hunting would make up the party from among his hunting friends. There were other places, too, at which the same procedure was adopted, but I mention Riding Mill because I was present at two of these dinners which took place there, the Colonel being the host on one occasion, while at the last dinner of the sort I remember Colonel Cowen and Mr. Fred Lamb (Master of the Harriers) were joint hosts. And apropos the first of these dinners I got into temporary and very slight trouble with Colonel Cowen, for, as he said, hollering his hounds on to a fresh fox, but, as I said, halloaing hard because two- thirds of the pack had gone away with a fox. I may mention here that one of Colonel Cowen' s unorthodox proceedings was the infusion of a considerable amount of bloodhound blood into his foxhound 72 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. kennel. Doggy men will know that the Master of the Braes of Derwent was a great breeder of bloodhounds and of several varieties of gun dog. He judged at many of the most im- portant dog shows, and was one of the greatest authorities of the day on all sorts of sporting dogs. Much of his hunting took place in big woodlands, and he had an idea that his fox- hounds wanted more nose and less pace for this particular sort of hunting. He therefore tried a bloodhound cross, which was not very successful. The cross-bred hounds cer- tainly hunted well in covert, but they dwelt on the line far too much in the open, and were lacking in drive. At the time I am writing of, more than thirty years ago, the experiment was engaging some attention, and several masters of hounds visited the pack to see how it worked. I do not remember that any of them approved, except perhaps Mr. Maynard, who was then an old man, and who possibly had the same ideas as the Colonel. I have an idea that Mr. Maynard had two or three of these cross-bred hounds in his kennel for a short time, but he very quickly altered his opinion, finding them too slow for the very open North Durham country. Well, one day the Blaydon Bum pack were hunting in the Guards Wood, and foxes went up and down the gill but would not break. I do not think the Colonel cared whether they broke or not that day, for scent was good in covert, and the music was magnificent. The field became scattered and hounds divided. With one or two others I was near the Duke's Hag when a fox and about twelve couples of hounds crossed the lane, and went on towards Hyons Wood. Then it was that I halloaed hard, but of course made no (attempt to stop hounds, because two-thirds of the pack were there, and I had no idea whether this fox had been hunted for an hour or only for a few minutes. Two or three of us followed on, hounds going through Hyons Wood, and very fast to Whitton- stall, where the fox got to ground in a drain at the Mains farm. The Colonel and his huntsman and others of the field arrived a quarter of an hour later, and I caught it hot for halloaing, but we soon made it up, for I explained that I was quite unaware he wanted to go on hunting in covert, and that I did not know the hunt servants had orders that day to stop hounds from running in the open. The dinner THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 73 at Riding Mill a week later was the outcome of my injudicious behaviour, and Colonel Cowen made a facetious speech, in which he implied that jumping fences was more in my line than really hunting foxes. This, by the way, was far from the truth, for I always considered the hound work of much more importance than anything else in hunting, only the Colonel, with whose hounds I was an occasional visitor, did not at that time know it. But I remember at the Newcastle races of the following summer having a long talk with the Master, who was somewhat surprised to find that I knew all the hounds in the North Durham pack, and was a fairly frequent visitor to the kennels. " My experience is," he said, " that all the young men who hunt only want to gallop and jump, and care nothing for hound work," and doubtless this is true of many men in many countries. I am nevertheless inclined to think that in the smaller countries, where people hunt throughout the season in the same company and with the same hounds, a fair number of regular followers not only appreciate hound work, but know by sight and name all, or nearly all, the best hounds in the pack. And in the North Durham country five and thirty years ago I know this was the case even with the younger men. Captain Apperley, John Greenwell, and his cousin, Alan Greenwell (for many years' secretary of the hunt), Hutton Maynard (the Master's eldest son), and pos- sibly one or two others, knew the hounds as well as the hunts- man did, while at the present day Miss Rogerson not only knows every hound and its peculiarities, but in four cases out of five also knows the note of any single hound which speaks, provided, of course, that the chorus is not great enough to drown the individual note. Where fields are always large the hound lover must find it difiicult to become really acquainted with the pack he follows, but even then it can be done by degrees, if only the enthusiast has a quick eye and a good memory. " I know a lot of these hounds, and I know a lot of their names, but I never can remember which name belongs to any particular hound," I once heard a young man say, and a year or two later, when he had become a Master and I visited his kennels, I reminded him of it, and he confessed that he still found the same diffi- 74 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. culty about the names at timesi, altliough when hunting he knew what every hound did. Even when I was looking over his pack he held forth as to the merits of one good-looking bitch, and then turned to the huntsman and asked whether she was " Lively " or " Likely." This, however, is a digression, and, to return to Colonel Cowen and his pack, I must not forget to say that his huntsman, Siddle Dixon, was quite an original, but in many ways a wonderful man. His father, often called Old Siddle Dixon, was huntsman to the Newcastle and Gateshead Harriers, and his son, John Dixon, is now stud groom to Mr. I. E. Cowen, son of Colonel Cowen, and secretary of the Braes of Derwent. Siddle Dixon, jun., was a bold and fearless rider, and had the very best huntsman's voice I ever heard. His style of talking to his hounds as they drew was marvellous, his voice being loud and yet extremely melodious, and his halloa was simply wonderful, while his voice " carried " in a fashion I have only once known before or since. But in ordinary con- versation his Tyneside dialect was so pronounced that the Southern would not have understood a word he said, and he was rather of the uncultured and rough order of huntsmen. Many of his whippers-in I have some slight recollection of, but ouly a man named Brown — frequently spoken of in the district as James Edward, with no mention of his surname — struck me as an original. James Edward was not of the hunt servant breed like Siddle Dixon, but he also was a bold and determined rider, with the character of being able to " go " on all soi*ts of refractory steeds. In addition, he was about the best handler of a fox I ever saw, and to the casual eye the most careless. I have seen him more than once thrust his hand into a drain when it appeared almost obvious that the fox must have been facing him, but I never saw or heard of his being bitten, and he was quite in his element and simply invaluable at a dig. He had, in fact, many of the qualities of a high-class hunt servant, but he was unsteady, and the Colonel was obliged to part with him, after which he took — as far as I can remember — to horse-breaking. Siddle Dixon continued to act as hunts- man until Colonel Cowen gave up in 1895, both being at the time well up in years; indeed, for some seasons the hunting THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 75 had been greatly confined tx> the woodlands, and hounds were more in the east of the country than in the west. Just as there was " lamentation in the Vale of Sheepwash when Michael Hardy died," so there was lamentation in the Vale of Derwent when Colonel Cowen announced his inten- tion of retiring, and this was perhaps the more pronounced because at the moment there was no one to take his place; indeed, during the season 1895-6 the country was not hunted, except on two or three occasions, when Mr. Rogerson brought over the North Durham, but the distance was too great to permit of much country being drawn. In the following year Mr Lewis Priestman came forward, and is now in his twenty- sixth season as IMagter, and I am only voicing public opinion when I say that throughout this long period the country has enjoyed capital sport and pronounced prosperity. That the style of hunting has become greatly changed, and that the sport has been of a faster and more lively character than it was during the latter period of Colonel Cowen's mastership is a fact which admits of no dispute, but this I can explain as being due to two or three very natural causes. In the first place, as I have shown. Colonel Cowen kept the hounds until he was an old man ; he was, more- over, a biggish weight in the latter years of his mastership, and greatly preferred hunting in the long gills which inter- sect the country to running in the open. Then many of his hounds still had the bloodhound strain, and the field had become accustomed to woodland hunting, and, in point of fact, the hunting was latterly conducted on a plan which was a little slow for young blood. The new Master was, broadly speaking, forty years younger than his predecessior, was a hard man over a. country, and had been for seiveral seasons a regular follower of the North Durham, Tynedale, and Zetland packs. He had kept horses at Bishop Auckland, for the Zetland, as well as at home, and he had many hunting friends of his own age, anxious to hunt with him, and who were keen on the riding as well as on the hunting part of the business. I should explain, however, that Mr. Priestman had had most of his early hunting with Colonel Cowen's hounds, and had, in fact, been for several seasons one of the regular followers of the pack. He knew the country and its inhabitants, and 76 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. was a personal friend of the older members of the hunt, as well as of the young hunting folk of both sexes among his own contemporaries whom he enlisted as new members. He had also from early boyhood been an enthusiast of hunting, determined to acquire knowledge of the sport in all its sur- roundings. He had studied the conditions which belong to present day hunting, and had for several years been remark- ably well mounted and well turned out. He had no hounds to begin with, as Colonel Cowen's pack had been disposed of during the previous spring, and he had no kennels beyond the old buildings of the defunct Shotley Bridge Beagles. He at once built new kennels on his own property at Tinkler Hill and procured drafts from other kennels with which to begin the season. I shall have something to say about these later, but at present I may put it on record that the new scratch pack did wonderfully well in their first season, and that this was almost entirely due to the fact that the best of the new hounds were possessed of any amount of drive. Naturally some were better than others, but the best — though getting on in years — took to their new country as a fish takes to water, and the upshot was that before the season was at an end foxes instead of hanging to the woodlands were being forced into the open, the result being that capital runs — many with long points — were being obtained over a fine, wild country, the going of which, outside the coverts, is, in spite of the hilly nature of the land, on the whole the very best I ever found in any country. One of the first things Mr. Priestman did after he assumed the mastership of the Braes of Derwent was to map out the country into quarters or districts, and arrange a plan by which every covert should be drawn, when possible, in regular order, so that there should be the same amount of hunting everywhere, and no complaints of one covert or district being favoured at the expense of another. Like every other country, the Braes of Derwent has its favoured localities, and, as a matter of course, certain fixtures are much more popular than others, but the plan of hunting each district in turn has worked very well, and I need hardly say that many of the very best hunts have come from the least popular coverts, while occasionally the best coverts in the best country have had THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 77 their unlucky times. Some slight description of the country may be given, as was done when the North Durham country was described, and, first, it may be explained that many of the coverts are what are generally called " gills," which means that they are wooded ravines with a, brook running through them. The banks of some of these ravines are a trifle steep, but ©veiry crossing isi well known, aud there are plenty of them. The other coverts are fir plantations, often with an undergrowth of heather, and open gorses such as are to be found in the adjoining Tynedale and North Durham coun- tries. Foxes are impartial in their attention to coverts, and one year a certain covert or group of coverts close together will invariably hold two or three, while in the following season these places may be drawn blank three or four times. But there are so many coverts in. each of the four quarters of the country that a long jog from covert to covert, except after an incursion into a neighbouring country, is almost unknown, and as foxes are, on the whole, very plentiful, there is seldom much waiting for the necessary article. During the mange epidemic as many as five blank days occurred in a season, but matters have entirely changed in this direction, and I imagine it is several seasons since hoiunds went home without having hunted at least one fox. For my own part, I have not been out en a blank day in the North of England for at least fifteen years, and during that period I cannot remember the Braes of Derwent ever being longer than two hours in finding, while, as a rule, there is a fox in the first covert drawn, and a great number of hunts have been begun before eleven o'clock. It has already been explained that the country is long and narrow, with the Tyne Valley for its northern boundary, and the river Derwent running through its southern side. Also, I have mentioned the ridge of hill in the centre between the two rivers, and have stated that from either river to the crown of the hill is a long, fairly regular slope, which is in most places so gradual that when hounds are running towards the top it is all good galloping ground. The gills all run upwar^ds from one or other of the rivers, most of them being on the Derwent side of the country, and few of them being over a mile in length, with the excep- tion of the Pont Gill, which is wooded for three miles and is 78 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. good covert the whole length of its course. The gradual rise from the rivers to the backbone of the hill is about five miles in the centre of the country, less towards its eastern end, and more to the west, and the rise varies from 400ft. to 700ft., which means that the hill immediately west of Axwell Park is some 400ft. above the two rivers, while Barley Hill, south- west of Minsteracres, is 700ft. above the Derwent, where it flows through Shotley Bridge. The Derwent is a swift running river with a rapid descent of water, and though Shotley Bridge is only ten miles by road from Swalwell, where the Derwent flows into the tidal Tyne, the bed of the river under Shotley Bridge is 300ft. above sea level. The Tyne, on the other hand, is, at Stocksfield, prob- ably not more than 50ft. above sea level, and this means that there is a much greater rise from the Tyne to the summit of the ridge than from the Derwent to the same place. Indeed, before motors came, when one drove from Shotley to Riding Mill, it was trotting ground everywhere, except the first half mile, whereas, coming the other way, say, from Riding Mill to Kiln Pit Hill, it was a steady climb, about two-thirds of which was walking ground. And while the country between the Derwent and the top of the hill is, for the most part, a very gradual slope, the land on the north side of the hill hasi three sharp rises and a small plain of nearly a. mile on the top of each rise. The land, in fact, rises in tiers, and there are two parallel high roads going north and south, and not very far apart, while there are many cross lanes. To give some idea of the country I may briefly describe the road from the Derwent at Allansford to the Tyne at Riding Mill, a distance of about ten miles. Allansford is a tiny hamlet consisting of a country house and a couple of cottages on one side and a mill and two cottages on the other side of the river. From a picturesque point of view the place is beautiful, for the river curves through steep and densely-wooded banks, and the old stone bridge, which rises 8ft. from the ends to the centre, and which some distance away looks more like an orna- mental arch than a bridge, is a wonderful piece of masonry, showing beautiful design. How old it is I do not know, but the road was at one time a direct coach route from Leeds to Edinburgh, and was originally a deviation from the Watling THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 79 Street, which it joins seven miles north and twenty miles to the south. Hard by axe two farms with histories, Hole House and Wharnley Burn, once the property of the Maddison family, which came to an end in the persons of two bachelor brotiieirs, o^ne ol whom was Postmast^ir-General more than one hundred and twenty years ago, and the other Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in 1782, and Secreta.ry of Legation when the Peace of Paris was signed a year later. All that remains of Hole House is one corner of the original building, which is now used as a farmhouse, but even in this there is a secret room, and the walls are of immense age. The Maddison property went to the Greenwells of Broomshields through a sister of the celebrities just mentioned, and many years ago a lot of their old Court costumes were taken out of an old press to use in private theatricals, but the clothes of both brothers were so small that no one except a boy of fourteen could wear them, and John Greenwell — whose middle name was Maddison — decided that neither of the brothers could have had an ounce of sport' in him, or he never would have left such a beautiful spot as Hole House to enter into the political world. Wharnley Burn is famous for the fact that one of the last of the Mosstroopers lived, and died there in 1714, but was denied " Christian sepulture," and is buried beneath a tree on the bank above the river. Anotlier Maddison, always called Mad Maddison, who lived some three hundred years ago, was, in his descendant's opinion, a real sports-man, for, having broken all the laws of his country, he was declared outlaw by the Bishop of Durham, who sent a troop of horse to Shotley Bridge, v^rith orders to bring Maddison back with them. This they succeeded in doing, but their arrival was unexpected, and Maddison, who lived at Shotley Hall, had to bolt from a side entrance to the house. He succeeded in getting a horse from one of his tenants, ana gave the troop a rare run, but his horse, probably out ot condition, stood still at Muggleswick Parli, some seven or eight miles away. Even when dismounted Maddison beat his pursuers for a time on foot, but they caught him at the Sneep, and hailed him to Durham, where he paid the penalty for his crimes. The present Shotley " Old " Hall is built on the site of Mad Maddison' s house, which is about three miles lower down the stream than Allansford. 80 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. Readers will, perhaps, pardon me for having whipped off on to local history; but, by way of excuse, I may say that though I know something of the historical conditions of the district in which I was born and brought up, I care most for it on account of the sport of all sorts I have seen in it. In the Allansford district every field and almost every inch of woodland reminds me of some incident in hunting, and I may now go on to say that the high road between Allansford and Riding Mill passes through no village, no town, and no popu- lation. It is a land of wide pastures of " white " land and fir plantations, and just as good scenting ground as I ever saw. The road winds up the hill from Allansford, and in the firsit^ mile or two there are a few fields — always the smallest fields — of arable land; but when the higher ground is reached these disappear, and it is grass, and nothing but grass, all the way to the Tyne Valley. I am making rather a point of this because a correspondent writes me saying that, although he does not know the country, he has always understood that the plough land was more extensive than the grass, and he refers me to The Hunting Countries of England, in which the follow- ing is, in the description of the Braes of Derwent : ' ' Most of the land is under the plough — though grass fields come in here and there, more often in the form of temporary seeds." I have looked up the reference, and find it correct. And I turn to Baily's Hunting Directory, where the description of the oo'Untry is as follows : "A bank and stone wall country ; about 60 per cent, pasture, 15 per cent, plough, and the remainder about equal proportions of woodland and moor." Who gave the description for Bcdly I have no idea, but it is absolutely true, and I feel quite certain that " Brooksby," who wrote the Hunting Co-imtries of England, cannot have seen the western and bigger side of the Braes of Derwent country, but has probably judged the hunt from what he saw from Blaydon Burn, the residence of the late Colonel Cowen. The volumes describing the various countries were written more than thirty-five years ago, and it is possible that some land has been laid down to grass since then, but I may add that by far the greater part of the arable land in the hunt is at the extreme east of the country, about Blaydon Burn, Barlow Fell, and Greenside. There are odd fields of THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 81 arable in the lower part of the Derwent Valley, but, as in the Tynedale country, the moment the higher land is reached the arable gives way entirely to grass. The tiny hamlets of Carterway Head and Kilnpit Hill, with an odd cottage here and there, are the only houses on the high road from Allansford to the Tyne, and west of them there are no villages in the hunting district, except Edmund- byers and Blanchland, the first named actually on the moors, and Blanchland near the head of the Derwent, and so remote that hounds are never there except to draw the coverts in the immediate neighbourhood. Why foxes never run from inland coverts to the big woods romid about and beyond Blanchland I do not know, but they never do, whereas Blanchland foxes five times out of six come down the valley. In all this western end of the hunt there are no railways — Blanchland is eleven miles from the nearest railway — no collieries, and no popula- tion, and no houses except scattered farms and cottages, and, as has been explained, foxes seldom hang to the woodlands, but are quickly driven to the open, and make long points. There are two divisions in the western part of the hunt, one extending from Eboheater, on the Derwenti, right up to and beyond Blanchland, and the other to the north from the summit of the hill down to the Tyne. In the home division, where the kennels are situated, there is a chain of coverts closie at hand, but north of the Derwent, and some two or three little places on the south side, which may be drawn from a kennels' meet. There are, as a matter of fact, lots of foxes quite close to the kennels, but it is difficult to stop them out, as there are many old pitfalls on the hillside behind, where coal was worked from collieries behind the hill many years ago. When Mr. Priestman first took hold he used to find in the gill which joins the puppy yard, but there is now a building estat® (as I have mentioned) close at hand, and the foxes are not there in the daytime, though strongly in evidence as far as poultry claims are conceimed. The upshot is that hounds are usually taken from a kennel meet to the Spring Wood, on the Shotley Hall estate, and this is a fairly sure find, and only half a mile from Mere Bum one of the great strongholds of the hunt. Two brooks — and consequently two gills — come through this Mere Burn, and in parts of it there is capital 82 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. lying, but it is a difficult place to get away from, for the land is undulating; the fir trees are in places 70ft. to 80ft. high, and some of the rides are terribly deep ; while the covert has two or three spurs which hounds may go through unseen. Yet at times very fine runs come from the Mere Bum, and within the last few years I have seen one Mere Bum fox go to' ground in a field drain, two miles beyond the Haydon boundary (near Slaley), and another killed at the east end of the Guards Wood, ou the Prudhoe Hall estate, which is at the extreme north-east of the country. During the war much of the Mere Burn was cut down Still, hounds were some years ago probably more O'ften lost, by some O'f the field in the Mere Burn than elsewhere, for the crossings are difficult and deep, and the rides nearly all go east and west. If hounds went up or down the bigger gill they were good to follow, but if they went from the main gill to the spur called Clark's Pastures it was quite anotheir matter, for they can travel twice as fa.st as horsemen over twoi difficult oroissings, and were oft.en clean out of sight and hearing when one reached the end of the covert. Many of the fieild used to remain in the lane near Newlands Grange, for foxes usiually break on that side, but in spite of the drawbacks I have pointed out the place is very popular, and alwa.3r9 well foxed, while), as a. general rule, its foxes are strong runners, with a big knowledge of country. Indeeid, foxes come to Mere Burn from all parts of the centre and west of the country, and no matter how often the place is drawn or run through it never fails when a fresh fox is wanted. West of Mere Bum is the Golf Wood and Hammer Mill Dene, while just west of Shotley Hall are Brown's Bog, Field Head Wood, Snods Edge Wood, and the Horse Shoe. These are much smaller coverts than Mere Burn, and probably Brown's Bog is the best, but foxes from all of them either go east to Mere Bum or west to the Sneep, and seldom break up the hill to the north. Another good covert in this locality was Fyne House, high up the hill, and well placed for a run, and north of it, nearly two miles away, is Newhouse, a fifty-acre plantation with a heather bottom, which during the early part of Mr. Priestman's mastership provided more foxes and more hunts than any other covert in the country. Both have now disappeared, but hounds THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 83 find in the ma&a of brushwood which remains. With the exception of Newhouse, the coverts I have mentioned are all on the Shotley Hall esitate, the owner of which, Mr. Hugh Walton-Wilson, has died since this paper was written. The Masiter, however, rents a good deal of the shooting, entirely in the intierests of the foxes, for he has no time to shooti. Two miles west of Shotley and south of the River Derwent is the Hole House Gill and a small covert at Bridge Hill, which are occasionally drawn, but they are not sure finds, and in the long run it pays better for hounds to meet at Allansford, and draw up the river. This draw is a most complicated bit of country, which includes Mosswood Banks, the Sneep, and the Badger Wood on the north side, and Derwent Grange Wood, Ca&tlesade Wood, and the Hiseho'pe and Horsley Hope Gills on the south side of the Derwent. Both sides of the river are well foxed, and probably the half-dozen coverts I have mentioned afford more sport than any other group in the hunt, for there is a fine open country on either side, and foxes of late years have hung very little to the river, but have gone boldly away. Foxes found at Mosswood will frequently keep to the river until they reach the Sneep, and at times they will cross and re-oross, going up one side and down the other, and vice versa, but quite an extraordinary number break at the Badger Wood (a small plantation which tenninates the chain of coverts), and boldly face the long asoent to the higher ground about Black Hedley. Indeed, the Badger Wood has been the real starting point for scores of good hunts, and it is also remarkable for the fact that on one windy day hounds travelled up the long lino of grass for a considerable distance with three foxes and four hares in front of them, and in full view of the field. Hares and foxes seemed to be making for one point, and it was only when the lane at Durham Field — a mile from the covert^ — was reached that hounds, who had stuck religiously to the particular fox they had hunted out of covert., were free from what looked to be most ridiculous obstruction. When hounds draw up the Derwent side from Allansford the meadows above the river banks form a fine coign of vantage for the field, who go forward, but behind the pack, Q 2 84 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. and frequently view a fax into the open country when that fox is half a mile or so in front of the pack. If a fox breaks right-handed, as many do, he has the best country in the hunt before him; but if hounds are some distance behind. Master Reynard is very apt to work in a half circle until he reaches the river banks again, and when this happens it is geoierally difficult to force this particular fox into the open a. second time. As the Sneep is approached the banks of the river become very steep, and in some places are dangerous for hounds, and near Crooked Oak farm there is a certain slab of rock, half-way down a wooded precipice, where foxes often lie, and where at times they will remain while hounds are drawing, knowing that they cannot be reached. Their tactics, however, were discovered many years ago, and now a whipper- in goes forward at the right moment, and if there is a. fox on the rock who will not move throws a stone or clod of earth at him. One of the very best hunts I ever saw had its origin with a fox that was said to have come off this ledge of rock. Hounds had been hunting for an hour or two, and foxes were sticking to the river banks with persistency, when there came a halloa near Crooked Oak farmhouse, and Mr. Priestman, who was then hunting hounds, took them to it and they hit it. off in the lane just east of the farm. Then for three-quarters of an hour they ran hard over the best country in the hunt, going eeist^ — if memory serves — as far as Highfield farm on the Whittonstall estate. But all the time they were making a half circle, and fifty minutes after the halloa hounds were back at the river and reduced to slow hunting. This was a grand gallop, done at a ripping pace, but when hounds reached the western end of the chain of Sneep coverts everyone was there, for hounds had described a wide half hoop, and the field had been on the inside all the way. Hounds never lost the line, but after having travelled some eight or nine miles of open country in forty-five minutes, they took twenty minutes between the Badger Wood and Silver Tongue, a distance of about a mile, but strong covert all the way. Near Silver Tongue they left the Derwent on the south side, and on the Durham side of the stream hunted steadily up Horsley Hope Gill, and reached the open again close to the railway, which divides the country from that of the North Durham. Here- THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 85 abouts the country is very wild, being a bleak moorland, about 1,200ft. above sea level, but hounds hunted on nearly to Bum Hill station. They bent left-handed — which means inland — short of the station, and crossed the Whitehall allotments, parts of which were almost waterlogged but luckily the pace was not great at this part of the hunt. An hour after leaving the Sneep they arrived at the North Plantation — one of the coverts known as Lord Bute's — and by this time the awkward going and the depth of the moor had shaken off thre©- fourths of the field. Still, there were nearly thirty riders when hounds entered Lord Bute's, but many were from the far side of the country, and a long way from home, the upshot being that when hounds worked through to the high road there was a general departure. The Master, two whippers-in, and three others were then left with hounds, who had a line out of the covert on to Eliza farm. It did not look hopeful, but hounds disappeared behind an avenue of beech trees, and the half- dozen trotted round to see if they could carry it on beyond. When we had gone past the beeches and looked for hounds nothing was to be seen ; but a moment later we discovered them a quarter of a mile ahead, going just as fast as they could travel. Luckily, the fox, who had been heading towards Woodlands, had turned on Sheepwalks farm and gone over to Rippon Burn, and we caught hounds as they crossed the lane, a good mile beyond Eliza farm. And as they ran through Rippon Burn one or two of us viewed the fox in the open field leaving the neighbourhood of the covert. Hounds were close behind, and ran through a comer of the Sawmill Wood, across the park at Woodlands, and down to the brook near Sunnyside. They did not cross at first, but hunted fast down the brook to Harbuck, then went by Stockerley and Esp Green to Greencroft, running right through the park and on to the Tower Wood ; but by this time it was quite dark, and we never knew for certain whether they killed their fox. Indeed, after vigorous horn-blowing had brought two-thirds of the pack to the Tower, it was far too dark to count them, but there were not many missing when the kennels were reached. This was an extraordinary hunt, and the last part of it much the best, for hounds were racing all the time, and from the North Plantation to the Tower Wood they had 86 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. made a seven-mile point over as good a grass line a.s there is in the N'orth Durham country. The whole hunt lasted over three hours, and there were even longer points in it than I have just mentioned, viz., from where hounds turned in the early part of the hunt, when not far from Highfield farm, to Bum Hill, and from Burn Hill to the finish. Of course, the middle part was slow, but good hound work, and the day was one of those on which scent was first rate on the grass, moderate on the heather, and very poor in covert. In the first and latter parts there was practically no covert work, and though hounds ran through the Woodlands district they really avoided all the coverts. Even at Rippon Burn the fox went just outside the coverts alongside the brook, and after that he never touched a real covert until he reached the Tower Wood. In many respects this was the best hunt I ever saw with Mr. Priestman's hounds, but it came rather late in the day, for it was begin- ning to get dark when we passed through Woodlands, and was really too dark for riding across conntry after that. It would, however, have been impossible to stop hounds after they had once begun to run hard on Eliza farm, and when the fox was viewed in front near Rippon Bum the riders were wide of hounds on the higher ground above them. This is only one of many good runs which have come from the Sneep coverts in recent years, and as a matter of fact many others have been described in the columns of the Field. The Sneep is famous for its romantic scenery, and the bend of the stream called the Horse Shoe is remarkably beautiful, and a great place for picnics in the summer. Above it, on the Durham side of the stream, are the most formidable head of earths in the hunt. These are on the wooded hillside, below Muggleswick Church, and are a labyrinth of rocks, with various entrances, and of such a size that they cannot be properly stopped. One and often two litters of cubs are bred there every spring, and instead of stopping in the usual way being resorted to, fires are lighted at either end of the earths during the night before hunting, and a watchman installed, who feeds the fires and keeps them going until the following afternoon. The curious thing about the an*angement is; that though foxes will try the earths constantly during a hunting day, and in nineteen THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 87 cases out of twenty turn away from the fires, they go back to these earths as soon as the fires are out and the watchman has departed, and use them again, both to lie in and for breeding, as if there were never any fires to scare them away. Strangers to the country who have been told of the facts will sometimes hardly credit them ; but they are quite true, never- theless, and thei system haa been in vogue for many years and always successful. Going up the river from Allansford the coverts on the north side of the stream include a wooded flat and gradually sloping banks which lie to the south, and which, one would think, would be the spot most particularly favoured by foxes. But the longer I live the more I find the orthodox theories about foxes to be frequently wrong, and though these Mosswood Banks are an ideal covert to look at — having a strong under- growth, a southern aspect, and being nearly a mile from a road, and always dry — foxes are generally found on the flat below, where the land is frequently wetter, or on the preci- pitous cliffs of the Sneep beyond. On the flat are some small grass enclosures, and across one of these runs an old stone drain, which foxes use, and where one has occasionally got to ground. From this drain I have seen a fox bolted by a squib, and while operations were in progress an old man who had brought a spade, and whom I knew as a rabbit- catcher, told me that he had over a period of years taken more than thirty foxes from that drain. This man had lived at Mosswood Cottages, barely a mile away, and had worked on the estate for many years, and during all the time he had procured foxes for a local bird stuffer, who " set them up " in a big case, the fox generally with a stuffed rabbit in its mouth, and sent them to the colliery villages to be raffled for at one shilling a ticket. The Durham miner is, as a rule, a fine friend to foxhunting, being both keen and enthusiastic, and every spring many litters are bred almost within a stone's throw of the colliery villages, and seldom disturbed. Indeed, if the vixen moves her cubs, it is because she has been bothered by boys or prowling dogs, and never because the miners object to her presence. Sometimes there is a litter of cubs close by, whose whereabouts are known to all the inhabitants of a colliery village, and the 88 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. children are warned by tlie miners not to go too near, and, in fact, the cubs are as zealously guarded as they would be elsewhere. A place I have in mind is the Almshouses Whin, near Cornsay, in the North Durham country. This covert is a 6-acre gorse, quite in the open, and separated by a stream and fence from a small colliery village. But cubs are bred there, or are brought there every spring, and though they are always within sound of the village and its yelping curs, they are never disturbed, and hounds find there not only in the cubhunting period but all through the later season. When a man, however, comes along with a stuffed fox set up in a case, and a tale of how it was " made in Germany," or possibly was caught on the distant moors, the miner is often most anxious to possess such an ornament, and the shillings are freely produced. That foxes are at times killed illegiti- mately in the countries I am writing about, and in every other country in the kingdom, is in all probability true; but miners are never the delinquents in the north, nor, as far as I know, in any of the hunting countries which have a mining popula- tion within their borders. The day on which the fox was bolted by a squib was a memorable one so far as I am concerned, for hounds were actually running foxes for just on seven hours. It was in the second year of Mr. Priestman's mastership, and I do not remember where the meet was, nor a great deal about the morning, beyond the fact that from eleven o'clock until two we were continuously hunting in the Mere Burn and other Shotley plantations. Then a fox got away and ran to the Sneep, and I think we got among fresh foxes. Anyhow, we had a good deal of woodland hunting, and finished by run- ning to ground and bolting the fox in the manner I have just described. Although it was at the very end of the season, and not dark until nearly seven o'clock, the field, with one or two exceptions, departed after the bolted fox had been broken up; but Mr. Priestman was terribly keen, and went to draw Horsley Hope Gill — the only covert in the neighbourhood which had not been disturbed that day. The Master and his hounds disappeared into the gill, one whipper-in went for- ward, and Mr. Charles Balleny, now in British Columbia, and I, the only ones left, rode up the fields above the covert, and THE BRAES OF DERWENT COUNTRY. 89 viewed a fox which broke behind the whipper-in. Hounds were quickly on the line; indeed, I think they had the line in covert, and a quarter of an hour later we were over the North Durham boundary, hounds running hard. I am not going to describe the hunt which followed, which, indeed, would be most difficult, for, though there was a fine scent •and an eager pack, the fox twisted about, taking us all over the country round Lord Bute's, and finally recrossing the rail- way line, which is the border between the two hunts, and going to ground in an open field near Castleside. It was now after seven o'clock, but we were unable to start for home